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

[lorihadams]

9-3-11 Today I was flying solo again and inspected the hives at about 10:15 this morning. I was anxious to see how Hive 2 was doing after I added the pollen patty. When I opened it up the pollen patty was completely gone!!! I only examined the uppers today and I was very pleased to see lots of honey being capped over and the frames were definitely heavier than last time. I didn't see as much brood and no newly laid brood in the upper but some in various stages of development and some capped brood as well. I am also sure that I saw some drone cells along the bottom of one of the frames in hive 1, about 10-15 clustered together. The drone cells are higher because the drones need more room than the nurse bees. I didn't inspect the lowers at all since I was by myself but maybe next week we will inspect just the lowers if hubby can help me. Hive 2 seems to be better and I will continue to feed pollen patties for the next month or so and give them a 2:1 concentration of sugar water from here on out. A 2:1 concentration is 4lbs of sugar to 1 quart of water. If the hive is stressed and needs a boost going into winter then this is a good solution in addition to adding a pollen patty.

Here's the pictures from Hive 2, my weaker hive, as you can see they have started capping over honey which they had very little of last inspection

I forgot the new pollen patty so my darling daughter brought it to me....here's mommy's helper

When I put the baggie of sugar water in they immediately went to it looking for the openings in the bag

They also attacked the pollen patty pretty vigorously too

Now hive 1, my stronger hive is just getting sugar water for now but I may add a pollen patty just to be on the safe side before winter. The upper was only inspected on this one as well. They had brood in various stages and some capped but I didn't see any newly laid ones. Much more honey, capped and not yet capped, and lots of pollen. I'm very pleased with this one but I'm hoping to inspect the lower middle frames next weekend to see if she is still laying brood down there, if not then I'll add a pollen patty...I want as many new bees in there going into the winter as possible. The frames were pretty heavy on this one too and the bees were a bit more aggressive on this hive but it may have just been my own paranoia at having to work the hives by myself.

Here are some pictures from hive 1

They also went straight for the baggie as soon as I put it in there

 

[ksalvagno]

Does this mean you won't be getting any honey this year?

 

[lorihadams]

Yep, usually when you have a hive for the first year you don't want to take any honey from it unless it is an established hive you got from someone else. We bought a nuc, which is a smaller hive box that holds 4 frames with a queen, workers and brood already laid in various stages.

Because they have to fill out so many frames, we use a 10 frame hive, it takes time for that to happen. We have already added a second hive body for them to store honey, pollen and expand out to lay more brood so they have had to fill out an additional 10 frames. So they have had to work on 16 empty frames and draw out comb on all of them. They are just now getting around to some serious honey production and it is too late in the year to harvest it now (usually gets harvested in July around here). If we were to harvest any honey from them now they wouldn't have time to produce more for themselves for the winter.

Next year I will switch the deep hive bodies in the spring, rotating the top body to the bottom to give them the illusion that they have more space and hopefully not swarm on me. Their honey stores are in the upper and they will eat on that all winter as well as eating the pollen for protein. The brood chamber is in the lower and the queen usually stays there. If I switch the hive bodies then the emptier frames where the honey was eaten will be used for her to lay brood and the old brood chamber will be on top allowing for the queen to migrate to the bottom and really have lots of room to lay new brood. The new upper deep will be used for honey storage, water storage, pollen storage and some brood. Then I will add a queen excluder and empty super so that I can collect extra honey for myself next summer. I am hoping for an extractor for xmas!!!

Make sense?

 

[keljonma]

Lori, does your beek association or another member have an extractor you could borrow?

For the cost of an extractor, you could purchase more medium and shallow supers, frames and foundation, which you will need for honey harvest in the future. Not to mention canning jars or honey bottles for storing the harvest.

 

[lorihadams]

I'm sure someone would let me borrow one or even offer to help....I need to get supers and foundation and frames and excluders for next year anyway. I am thinking I will order them for xmas for myself. Chad wants to go ahead and get the extractor but I just saw the plans for a homemade one in this months issue of GRIT magazine.

 

[lorihadams]

9-11-11 Today hubby was back with me and I am glad he was! He had not inspected the hives in a while so I manned the smoker and he looked at the frames. We decided to only check the lower deeps on both hives this week. We started with hive 2, I added another pollen patty last week and they had finished most of it but not all so we left it alone and just removed the entire upper deep to examine the lower. We got to look at most of the frames but not all because the bees are getting very aggressive. It is just that time of year. This is the time when they are building up their stores of honey and pollen for the winter and they do NOT like to be disturbed and view too much manipulation as a threat and come become more active and likely to come after you. We still do not wear any gear and only use a smoker and try to minimize that. The frames looked pretty good....lots of various stages of brood in the center frames and lots of honey and pollen being stored in the outer frames so I am much happier with the state of this hive at this point.

Here are the pictures from Hive 2

Hive 1 also looks pretty good but to be honest we couldn't inspect this one much because the number of bees is so much higher and they were so agitated that we took off the whole upper deep and tried to check out some of the frames on the lower but they just were too agitated. We did get a few pictures though. I feel like this hive is probably pretty good for the winter though.

 

[lorihadams]

I looked at the hives Saturday 9-17-11 by myself again. It was significantly cooler (in the upper 60s) when I did it so I didn't get to examine the frames at all and I couldn't get the stupid smoker to stay lit and since they were agitated I just decided to play it safe and re-feed with pollen patties in both hives this time and I made a bigger batch of sugar water (2 1/2 quarts of water with 10 lbs of sugar) and split it between the two hives with the baggie feeder. I took a few shots of the bees eating the fresh sugar water that were pretty neat...but I can't get photobucket to load this morning so I will post them later.I am planning on taking the empty super off probably the last week of October or the first week of November just to be on the safe side and get them ready for the winter.

I wanted to show you something that our president shared with us. He printed off a schedule of what he does monthly for the whole year. Now, keep in mind that we are in central VA so our weather is zone 7a with a pocket of zone 6 near Richmond. We usually get our first frost around mid October. These are his guidelines and only reflect his opinions. I will probably do some things differently from him. I tend to take a more natural approach to things

Here is Tom O'Neil's shedule for bee hive intervention:
January- leave alone
February- leave alone
March- first warm day (60 degrees +) rotate hive bodies, add pollen patty between hive bodies, add 2 quarts sugar water 1:1 ratio, assess hive strength (add supers to strong hives when bees cover the top of hive), check weekly for need of supers
April- check weekly for need of supers, remove screen wire bottom board (solid piece)
May- check weekly for need of supers
June- check weekly for need of supers
July- first week of July pull honey supers, if hive is still strong leave on one super, add pollen patty mid July, check weight of hive, light hives add sugar water
August- check weight of hive, add sugar water if necessary, add pollen patty if necessary
September- pull honey supers off, continue to check weight of hive, treat for varroa mites and trachial mites
October- continue to check weight of hive, change to 2:1 ratio sugar water
November- continue to check weight of hive, install entrance reducer, insert screen wire bottom board (solid piece), place a hand full of sugar on the inner cover
December- leave alone

Now, some things I do differently. I don't treat for varroa mites unless I see them. I will probably treat for trachial mites next week. There is a recipe in Beekeeping for Dummies for tracheal mites on page 218. If anyone needs it just let me know and I'll post it.

I also plan to add pollen patties in February if we get a warmish day to jumpstart the queen into laying a little early. I also have fed both my hives (they were new) all summer long with a weaker sugar water solution. It is a good idea to check your hives in late August to see if there are nutritional deficiencies because they may need a higher concentration of sugar water and a pollen patty...mine did. I plan on keeping an eye on the weather as to when to replace my bottom board, remove my empty super (to make keeping the hive warm easier), and install the entrance reducer. If we keep on with this cold snap I may do it sooner than his schedule.

At our last meeting they also shared a website with a series of 8 videos (20 minutes total for all) done by Tom Seeley at Cornell University and I wanted to share that with you. www.sciencefriday.com/videos/series/5/

 

[lorihadams]

Here are the pics from 9-17-11

 

[lorihadams]

9-26-11

Didn't get to examine the hives but added food....hive one had completely eaten the pollen patty put in a week ago and the weaker hive, hive 2, had eaten about half. They were pretty agitated and we were expecting rain so I just smoked them enough to get the old baggie out and the new baggie in. Seemed to be doing well.

 

[lorihadams]

Monday October 3, 2011

Weather has been cold lately so I didn't do much else but mix up some pretty concentrated sugar water and refeed both hives. I am thinking I will feed them until the first week of November and then take off the empty super, put on the solid bottom board, and add the entrance reducer on the widest setting. The first hive had eaten the whole pollen patty I had given it in a week and the other hive still had a little bit left. I may try lifting the hive bodies next week to see how heavy they are and if they feel pretty solid then I will leave them alone. I may try to examine a few frames if my husband can help me and if the weather cooperates but I think I am pretty much done for examining them for now. I have chosen not to treat for varroa mites but am still thinking about making up a crisco patty for tracheal mites. They appear to be doing fine and just looking down into the frames they appear to have drawn out lots of comb so I am assuming they are filling it with honey for the winter. It has just been too cold/windy to go into the frames much.

Had our monthly meeting Thursday night and got to see several methods of queening which was interesting and we may try to split our stronger hive into a new colony. We also touched on winterizing the hive but will probably go more in depth at November's meeting.

Also found out that Brushy Mountain will be running it's free shipping special throughout the month of December so if you need supplies December is the month to stock up!!! I plan on ordering 4 supers with frames and foundation, a box of pollen patties, smoker fuel, 2 queen excluders, and maybe some other small items if they strike my fancy! I have 2 nuc boxes with 4 empty frames with foundation in them so if I need to capture a swarm or split either or both of the hives next spring I have a place to put them until I need to move them to a hive body.