Monday September 17 Foulbrood!

OK so I opened up the Not So Happy hive and gave it a thorough inspection. It appears that the hive has foulbrood. I think it is European since it has 'melted larvae', doesn't smell awful or have a ropey consistency. The larvae that I have dug out with a toothpick are white and gooey, but not ropey.

The nuc actually looks the best right now. It has the most bees (again) thanks to the fact that I was feeding it. It has capped brood. It probably does not have as much honey as the other 2 hives, but will probably put away more before the weather gets colder.

Queenless?

Well it's been a while since I did a full inspection of the hives. Since the "Happy" hive always seemed to have plenty of bees -- coming, going and bearding, I did not think I needed to do a full inspection. Apparently I was wrong. I noticed a drop in activity so I checked it thoroughly today and found no eggs, no larvae, no brood and apparently no queen! Rats!
Tomorrow I'm going to do a thorough inspection of the other hives and see if things are going OK for them.
The nuc hive has finished off another bucket of syrup so I hope they are drawing comb.
The "Happy" hive still hasn't drawn any comb on the foundation that I got from the Honey Exchange. I don't know what's up with that.
The "Not So Happy" hive seems to have bees coming and going just fine so hopefully things are good there.
Now I have to decide what to do with the queenless hive. I have at least 10 frames of honey and still some bees. Should I try purchasing a queen, or is it to late? Should I purchase a nuc? Bee Pride has nucs for sale. Should I try putting a frame with eggs from the other hives into the hive and see if they can start a new queen, or is it too late? Should I just put the frames from this hive into the other 2 hives to make them stronger for the winter?
I think that I'll wait until after tomorrow's inspections to decide, and maybe email Rick Cooper.

Just checking August 25

Since I was worried about the nuc I started feeding it sugar syrup in the hopes they would start working the third medium box. They have finally started, and they have finished off one bucket of syrup so far. Maybe they will have enough food for the winter.
In the not-so-happy hive I had moved 2 of the full frames of honey to the fourth box and moved 2 empty frames down into the third box to try and get them to start working the 4th box. That appears to be working, and they are now building comb in the other frames in the 4th box.
Since moving frames seems to work today I moved 2 frames between the 3rd and 4th boxes in the happy hive.
Both of the package hives appear to have totally filled the 3rd box with honey--before I messed with them so I think they'll have enough winter stores.
None of the hives appear to like the foundation I got from the honey exchange, or maybe it just seems that way since they are so slow drawing comb on it. Even with syrup the nuc is slow to draw out comb.
Now I need to start prepping for winter: Api Life and mouse guards to start, I think.

Today's inspection

I have been peeking occasionally into the hives to see if they need more space. They haven't needed more, but I have been worried about the nuc. The number of bees is so much less than the other hives. I decided to look and see is I could find the queen. The top box is still mostly empty, but they have started to draw comb in a couple of the middle frames. I started into the second box and the first four frames had honey. Finally I found a frame with eggs and capped brood and even a worker bee who was in the process of hatching. I'm still worried that I have an under-performing queen and maybe I should replace her, but since I have trouble finding her I am not confident that I can replace her.
I looked online and saw something about replacing a queen anytime between June 21 and September 21, but that was for a bee farm in Illinois. It may be too late in the season for Maine(?)

Weekly Check 7/15/2012

The Happy and Not-So-Happy hives are proceeding as expected. They don't seem to need another box yet. The nuc hive has eggs, larvae and capped brood so even if I can't spot the queen, there must be one in there somewhere. I don't know if it's the heat or just that I get spooked by the number of bees on a frame, but I can't seem to identify any of the queens now. I know I have seen a queen in each hive at one time or another, but I can't seem to do it consistently. I don't even know if it is really worth the trouble to disturb the hives just so I can practice finding the queen, and those boxes are really heavy when they are full! I'm afraid I'll do more damage and squash more bees if I keep digging around. I'm going to try just taking a peek into the top and adding boxes if they need it and see if leaving them alone will work out OK. The nuc hive has just about filled its 2 boxes, but not expanded into the top box yet. I'm not sure why. It's interesting to try and figure out why these 3 hives are all so different.

Weekly Inspection

OK. I made a run to The Honey Exchange in Portland. I needed to get parts for more mediums, but I've been with visiting relatives all week so it was hard to figure out where to go to get stuff.
Fortunately, Phil is running a special where the assembly of  a hive kit is free so this was just too good to pass up since I'm so short on time.
The kit has 5 mediums with frames and foundation, an inner cover, a telescoping outer cover, a slatted bottom board, a  screened bottom board, and a hive stand with legs. Phil gets his hive parts from another source than Brown's Bee Farm where I got my other hive kits, and the boxes are more square, and the 'fit and finish' appears to be higher quality. I think they are a bit more expensive, but the assembly was a real treat. I don't have a fancy stapler which is what it appears that Phil uses. I'm guessing it's like a nail gun so putting things together is a snap. The only thing that isn't assembled is the foundation into the frames so I'll be doing that tonight so I can put more boxes on the hives.
The nuc hive is still working the 2 original boxes since the old queen swarmed. I see brood and honey so I'm hoping there is a queen in there somewhere.
The Happy hive has pretty much filled 3 boxes so I'll be putting another box on top tomorrow.
The Not-So-Happy hive is making great strides in its 3rd box so I'll be putting another box on top tomorrow.
Since I now have a couple of spare boxes along with a top and bottom and hive stand, I think I'll put out all of my 'spare parts' as an empty hive in case one of the hives decides to swarm. I still don't trust what I'm doing since I lost the old nuc queen. I'm not entirely sure I got rid of the other swarm cells in the hives so this may be a good plan.

Weekly? Inspection

I checked on the Not-So-Happy hive first thinking there would not be much changed, but as usual with the bees I was wrong. They have finally almost filled 2 medium boxes, but they also have started building swarm cells. I tried discouraging them by removing those cells and adding a third box. We'll see if that settles them.
Next I opened the nuc hive. This hive has 3 medium boxes, but they are not filled up yet since the old marked queen took off. I saw some brood so I hope that means there is a queen in there somewhere. They have lots of honey but not much brood right now.
Then I opened the Happy hive. This hive appears to have filled up 3 boxes. I need to add another box, but I need to make a run to the bee store to get the parts. By the time I opened up this one I was too tired to do more than spot-check, but I don't think they have started any swarm cells. I'm still impressed by how strong this hive is.

Gone!

Sometime between noon and when Tom got home from work the 2 clusters of bees left for parts unknown. They did not accept my offer of free housing. Hopefully the bees in the hive will raise another queen and get back to work on filling up the frames.

Two?

There appear to be 2 clusters of bees in 2 neighboring pine trees. Are they really honey bees? Or some other insects? I do think the nuc has swarmed, but since they appear to be raising a replacement queen the hive should survive. How do they deal with the weather when they appear to be in the open? More stuff to learn...

Reward: Missing Queen

Ok so I inspected the 3 hives.
As expected the 2 package hives are continuing as before. No swarm cells. Boxes still have some space for them to draw more comb.
The nuc however has about 8-10 swarm cells. I thought when I checked a couple of weeks ago there were no swarm cells. I also did not see the marked queen today. The bees seemed to be putting in more honey than anything else. There are still 4-6 empty frames so I don't know why they would swarm. I think I might have seen an unmarked queen, but I'm not sure. Oh well I'll just wait and see if there is more brood next week.
Maybe the swarm in the tree will move into the box I put in the yard. Then I'd have 4 hives which would be crazy, but interesting.

Swarm!

I went out in the yard this morning to let my horse out to graze. I don't know why, but I looked up, and there was a swarm of bees in a tree. Strangely enough it is in a pine tree about 40' up.
I'm surprised I even noticed it since we are surrounded by pine trees. I'm surprised they didn't choose an oak or a maple, but those are shorter.
I have a bad feeling that they came from my nuc hive. There are a lot fewer bees going in and out of that hive. I'll do a hive inspection in an hour or two to verify that, but I want them to be all warmed up before I open up the hive.
I still had an empty medium box in the basement so I put that in the yard with 10 frames of foundation. I am currently only using screened bottom boards for my hives so I have 2 solid bottom boards so right now I have one of those under the box and one on top to make an impromptu hive. I sprayed it with some sugar syrup to try attracting the scout bees for the swarm.
Right now swarm watching is my spectator sport!

Weekly Inspection

It's supposed to rain for the next 5 days so I thought I should do my inspection today. I didn't specifically look for queens so naturally I didn't see any.
I started with the Not-So-Happy hive. It is still working on the bottom medium hive box. There is brood in the middle 4 frames and honey in a couple of frames to either side, but they have not reached the end frames yet. The pattern of brood etc. is nice, but this hive seems to be quite slow to develop, and I don't think I'll be putting another box on top for another week or so. The syrup consumption is slower as well. Maybe I should be re-queening this hive? I'll have to read up on this, but I  don't think I need to do anything in a hurry.
I then looked at the Happy hive. It still has not completely finished the bottom box. It is working on frames 1 and 9, but not yet 10. There is brood and honey in the bottom box. The next box up has about 3 frames under development with brood and honey so it is pretty much equivalent to one complete box and starting on the second box. Much quicker performance than the other package hive, but I've seen some evidence of mites in this hive. One of the little dead carcasses that were dumped on the "doorstep" was a larva with a mite clearly visible, and I've seen a few bees with misshapen wings that indicate viruses brought on by mites. I'm going to have to try something to knock down mites in this hive, but overall it appears to be thriving.
Lastly I looked in on the nuc. Each medium nuc box came with 5 frames "under development" and those frames are fully filled in. The top box has another frame under construction, but 2 frames on each side available for further expansion. The bottom box has expansion space in frames 1, 9 and 10, and this hive seems to be thriving. Hopefully I'll be putting a 3rd box on top by the end of June.
Here's hoping the weather man is wrong so the bees can bring in more nectar, and the farmers can put up some hay!

Quick look

A couple of days ago I took a quick look at the syrup buckets to see how they were doing and found 2 were empty. I replaced those 2, and today I replaced the 3rd bucket on the Not-So-Happy hive. They are sucking down the sugar syrup fast. I'm looking forward to the day I can stop feeding them!

Weekly check

I took a quick look into them hives today. I only pulled the end frames to see if the bees were working them yet. I added more syrup to the feeders--the nuc was out of syrup, the Happy hive was working hard on its bucket, the Not-So-Happy hive not so much.
The Not-So-Happy hive is still slowly working on its first medium box.
The Happy hive has started working some of the middle frames in its 2nd box, but still hasn't finished the lower box yet so maybe I should have waited a week before adding the box. Oh well, at least I know they won't swarm.
The nuc has started on frame 1 in the upper box, but not frame 10. The 10th frame has the grease patty on top so they seem to avoid that one mostly. The bottom box is not as full so I swapped the top and bottom boxes.
They all seem to be doing well...

Yesterday I got back from a business trip, but couldn't resist taking a peek at the syrup buckets. The 2 package hives are almost out of syrup, but the nuc was out of syrup--again. I put another bucket on and figured I'd do an inspection today.
Today I looked at the Happy hive. I wasn't looking for the queen, just checking to see how things are going. The hive is almost out of syrup, and almost out of room in the first box! For frames 1-10, they are building out into number one, but still have room in frames 9 & 10. I think because the grease patty is on top of 9 & 10. Still tomorrow I'm going to put another box of frames on top and put on another bucket of syrup.
I looked at the Not-So-Happy hive, and I was pleased to see that things are filling in nicely. This hive appears to be growing slower, but the combs look good so I don't think there is anything to worry about here. I just need to be patient. They have filled into about 6 frames so I don't need another box yet, but I will be putting more syrup on top tomorrow.
Lastly the nuc hive is doing well. The top box appears to be filling in faster than the bottom box. I think if this continues, next week I will try swapping the boxes. They still have room so I don't need to add another box yet, but I do need to keep an eye on the syrup. It's going fast!
The best news on the nuc hive is that I finally spotted the queen! She is marked with a little daub of white, and she was in the bottom box when I was inspecting it--pretty much in the middle of the box.

OK. So I looked around in the hives today.
The "Happy" hive looks good, but still has some space so I just replenished the syrup bucket and left things as is.
The "Not So Happy" hive looks OK. It also still has plenty of space, and I replenished the syrup bucket. The comb pattern is odd. Burr comb in the opening under the bucket and underneath one of the frames, but not supercedure or swarm cells. Layers of comb in the frame as if it's too hard to just build the foundation out. Still only working about 5 frames.
I saw queens in both of the package hives.
The Nuc hive looks pretty solid for 5-6 frames in each box.There was a clump of burr comb that might have been a swarm cell or might have been drone brood. I cut it out just to be on the safe side. I couldn't find the queen even though she is supposed to be marked with white (for 2011). That could be because there are so many bees or because she's a Carniolan and not an Italian like the others. I'm not sure, but I guess I can just wait until next week to take another look. I'm going to google images of Carniolans before my next inspection to make sure I know what I'm looking for.

It's sunny today after several days of rain so I am itchy to peek into the hives, but it's windy so I'm going to wait until tomorrow. That said I did decide to peek at the syrup buckets and found that the nuc had just about finished its bucket. That's a gallon in 5 days! I put a new bucket on, and I'm planning to look around tomorrow. It's supposed to be about 10 degrees warmer and sunny.

Moved the nuc into its new home

I moved the frames from the nuc into my medium boxes at lunch time today. See the before and after pictures. The top box on the hive is empty except for the bucket of syrup that is feeding the bees.
The queen is supposed to be marked white for 2011, but I didn't see her when I was moving the frames.
Yesterday when I was looking at the other hives I found the queen in the not-so-happy hive, and I saw larva in both hives so things look pretty good overall.

Picked up a nuc today!

I went up to Brown's Bee Farm and got another medium kit with a screened bottom board and a hive stand. I put it together except for the frames--finished three boxes, hive stand, telescoping outer cover. Then I went to Falmouth and picked up a medium nuc. I brought it home, set it on the hive stand, and removed the stuff blocking the entrances. Tomorrow I get to move them into the hive.

Almost three weeks

I put another bucket of syrup on the not so happy hive today. There was a little left, but the forecast is for pouring rain tomorrow so I figured today was a good day for this. I replaced the bucket on the happy hive already so they should be good for a few more days. I know we need the rain, but I wish it would warm up again.

Two weeks

The Monday after I installed the packages was amazingly hot. About 80 degrees in April!

One of the hives was acting strangely. It looked suspiciously like a swarm on the front of the hive. A clump of bees with many more zooming around the yard.

I had realized the day before that I had put the hive-top feeder on wrong and fixed it, but I think the queen was not happy with her accommodations. I wasn't supposed to open the hive and look until Tuesday, and then I was supposed to remove the queen cages so the only thing I could think to do was spray some sugar syrup on the clump of bees and hope that they would go back into the hive. I was hoping they were just warm, and the spray would cool things down.

So the next day I opened up one hive--the one with the bucket feeder--and removed the queen cage. There were about 6 bees inside the cage starting to draw out comb, but no queen. There were lots of bees spread out over about 4 frames so things looked good in that hive. The other hive--the one with the hive-top feeder--also had an empty queen cage, and there were bees building burr comb on the bottom of the queen cage. Again I didn't see a queen, but there were also a lot fewer bees and they seemed to be clumped on 2 frames. This did not look good. I had a bad feeling about that hive, but I was supposed to wait until Saturday to go messing about in the hive so I worked on my patience.

Saturday and Sunday it was supposed to rain, and I was catching a plane for a business trip early Monday morning so I opened up the hives on Friday to see how things looked. Again the hive with the bucket feeder looked good, but the hive with the big fancy hive-top feeder looked poorly so I grabbed a plastic bucket that my horses' supplements came in, cut a hole in the top, got out my glue gun and glued a piece of screen across the hole. Voila! A second bucket feeder. I put that on the the second hive, crossed my fingers, and left town for a week.

Saturday and Sunday after I got back were both very windy days. Not good weather for messing with the hives. I took a quick peek anyway, and thought I saw a queen in the "happy" hive.

Monday, I took another look, and this time I saw what I think is a queen in the not so happy hive. Maybe the problems with the feeder just set that hive back some, or maybe she's not such a great queen; I'm not sure which it is yet, but I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

The happy hive has about 6-7 frames going, but the other has about half that many. There is something capped in the happy hive. I'm not sure if it's honey or brood yet. I fed the Honey B Healthy supplement in the syrup, and everything in the hive appears to be bright yellow. There are also clearly some pollen cells, but I guess I'll just have to watch the capped cells and see what if anything comes out. The not so happy hive has some things capped as well, but a lot less. Patience!

First step

I picked up 2 packages of bees yesterday at Bees N Me and installed them in my hives. Yay!
I have 2 different hive-top feeders: one is the usual bucket feeder and the other is a fancy one from BeeCommerce. I installed the fancy one wrong and drowned some bees before correcting my mistake. No inner cover on top of the feeder. The top is supposed to be inaccessible, and the screen is supposed to prevent drowning. Checking later I found that even with the screen I had a few drowned bees. I guess simple is safer when it comes to feeders.
Now I have to wait until Tuesday before checking to see if the queen is out of her box in each hive. There are small clouds of bees in front of each hive. The temperature is above 70 degrees which is amazing for April, and I'm hoping the clouds of bees are normal. They don't seem to be fighting or anything, and the buzzing doesn't sound angry so I'm going to assume it's all good.
Here's what it looks like today.