I inspected the main hive and found some queen cups and one supersedure cell so I pulled about 6 frames of brood and started another split. That was last Friday, July 1, if I recall correctly.
I added a super to the main hive; although I will need to check again to see if there are any more queen cells or if I have stripped out enough brood to suppress swarming. I want to see if I can harvest a whole box of honey. This super is the 4th box so the other 3 should still be enough to sustain the hive for the winter.
I am feeding both splits with the honey I extracted from the dead-out. I am using a feeder jar inside a hive box with a shim. The feeder takes about 3 frames of space so I put 7 frames in as well to allow for expansion. So far each split has been given 2 jars of honey.
I bought a marking pen so I can mark my queens when I find them. Meghan Gaven suggested practicing on drones first. That will be my next project. I will find the queen in the first split and mark her--after marking a couple of drones. That will also give me time to inspect the first split and make sure her pattern is good.
If the main hive is still making queen cells I will probably be making a third split. Hopefully the new queens are as good as their mother. She lays a beautiful pattern and an amazing amount. There was brood in all 3 boxes before I put on the super.
Thursday, July 7, 2016
Friday, June 24, 2016
Just checking
I did a post-mortem on the failed split. I'm guessing I just did not add enough bees to keep the baby bees fed. It appears that the emerging bees died from starvation. That's just a guess since I did not do any microscopy on the dead bees.
The other split has lots of eggs so there is a new queen in there somewhere. I did not identify her so I'll look again next week. There is still some room in there for the new colony.
I did a quick look into the main hive. There is brood in the top box as well as some additional space. I think I will try making one more split from this hive before the summer goes along too much further. I need to go all the way to the bottom box to see if they are using that box. I'm not sure they are and if not, why not. I want to prepare another box with frames before breaking down that colony.
The other split has lots of eggs so there is a new queen in there somewhere. I did not identify her so I'll look again next week. There is still some room in there for the new colony.
I did a quick look into the main hive. There is brood in the top box as well as some additional space. I think I will try making one more split from this hive before the summer goes along too much further. I need to go all the way to the bottom box to see if they are using that box. I'm not sure they are and if not, why not. I want to prepare another box with frames before breaking down that colony.
Saturday, June 4, 2016
Checking the splits
Today I checked on my 2 splits. The 10 frame medium looks good with 7 queen cells. I gave them syrup with fumagilin. I also gave the original hive its second dose of fumagilin.
The other split has no queen cells and shows evidence of some disease. I'm not sure what. Right now I'm leaving it alone. I gave it some honey from the dead-out hive, but no additional bees or frames. I'm not sure what to do about that hive so maybe I'll just leave it as an experiment for now to see what happens with the brood in that hive.
Why did one split succeed and not the other? They both came from frames from the main hive. Is it because I was re-using frames from past hives? I'm guessing yes, and I should strip and clean the frames and boxes from previous hives. I need to build my solar melter and start processing wax. Bleach the equipment for safe reuse before trying another split.
The other split has no queen cells and shows evidence of some disease. I'm not sure what. Right now I'm leaving it alone. I gave it some honey from the dead-out hive, but no additional bees or frames. I'm not sure what to do about that hive so maybe I'll just leave it as an experiment for now to see what happens with the brood in that hive.
Why did one split succeed and not the other? They both came from frames from the main hive. Is it because I was re-using frames from past hives? I'm guessing yes, and I should strip and clean the frames and boxes from previous hives. I need to build my solar melter and start processing wax. Bleach the equipment for safe reuse before trying another split.
Friday, May 27, 2016
Misstep
Yesterday I extracted honey from the dead hive, and as I was doing that I got an email response to my question about whether or not it was safe to use that honey. So now I have a bucket of honey that I can't use for myself. Let's go back to the beginning...
I had emailed my local master beekeeper about the honey in the dead hive, but he did not respond immediately so I asked the YCBA Google Group. I got one response from the group and that response was that it was OK. So I rented the manual honey extractor from YCBA and started extracting honey. I then got the email from the master beekeeper that the honey should not be used for people if the bees were medicated with thymol, antibiotics or fumagilin. I used fumagilin last fall so he recommended feeding the honey back to the bees. Now I get to figure out the best way to do that from the bucket of honey that I now have.
The good part of this process is that I got more practice at extracting honey. I like this extractor better than the one I rented last fall. It is smaller and yet did 4 medium frames and is easier to clean. I extracted 15 frames and decided to split my hive and give the wet frames back to the bees to start them off better. The main hive is doing really well with brood and eggs so it seems like a good thing to do.
I had emailed my local master beekeeper about the honey in the dead hive, but he did not respond immediately so I asked the YCBA Google Group. I got one response from the group and that response was that it was OK. So I rented the manual honey extractor from YCBA and started extracting honey. I then got the email from the master beekeeper that the honey should not be used for people if the bees were medicated with thymol, antibiotics or fumagilin. I used fumagilin last fall so he recommended feeding the honey back to the bees. Now I get to figure out the best way to do that from the bucket of honey that I now have.
The good part of this process is that I got more practice at extracting honey. I like this extractor better than the one I rented last fall. It is smaller and yet did 4 medium frames and is easier to clean. I extracted 15 frames and decided to split my hive and give the wet frames back to the bees to start them off better. The main hive is doing really well with brood and eggs so it seems like a good thing to do.
Saturday, May 21, 2016
Spring Check-Up
I finally got around to opening up my hives.
I had 2 hives going into the winter. One died off early in the winter. I don't know why. The second made it through and still had dry sugar on the inner cover.
The dead out had about 15 frames of honey. I found a small cluster of bees that were head first into the frame, but most of the bees were dead on the bottom board. There were some partial frames of honey and pollen. I put them into one box and left it in the same place so the bees in the other hive can clear it out. I put a couple of newer empty frames into my nuc box on the other side of the live hive.
I prepared the nuc box just in case the hive was getting ready to swarm. I will do an artificial swarm split if needed.
I opened up the hive right down to the bottom board and cleaned it off. There were some dead bees, but not as many as the other hive. Lots of cappings and bits of pollen, but nothing to indicate disease.
The bottom box had some honey and pollen and newly cleaned comb indicating the workers are preparing for the queen to move down into the bottom box. The middle box had some honey and brood, and I found the queen with her blue dot so I closed up the middle box and moved on. The top box had 3 frames of honey on one side and then 5 frames of brood and honey and pollen with 2 frames of honey on the other side. The queen appears to be doing well and getting ready to move into the bottom box. I saw almost all worker brood, a little drone brood, and some empty queen cups, but no signs of swarming. I have not fed the hive any syrup or Fumagilin-B so everything they have done has been on their own. The trees are flowering and so are the wild strawberries and dandelions so there is plenty of forage. The weather has been dry so they have been out a lot. I will decide on medications tomorrow.
I had 2 hives going into the winter. One died off early in the winter. I don't know why. The second made it through and still had dry sugar on the inner cover.
The dead out had about 15 frames of honey. I found a small cluster of bees that were head first into the frame, but most of the bees were dead on the bottom board. There were some partial frames of honey and pollen. I put them into one box and left it in the same place so the bees in the other hive can clear it out. I put a couple of newer empty frames into my nuc box on the other side of the live hive.
I prepared the nuc box just in case the hive was getting ready to swarm. I will do an artificial swarm split if needed.
I opened up the hive right down to the bottom board and cleaned it off. There were some dead bees, but not as many as the other hive. Lots of cappings and bits of pollen, but nothing to indicate disease.
The bottom box had some honey and pollen and newly cleaned comb indicating the workers are preparing for the queen to move down into the bottom box. The middle box had some honey and brood, and I found the queen with her blue dot so I closed up the middle box and moved on. The top box had 3 frames of honey on one side and then 5 frames of brood and honey and pollen with 2 frames of honey on the other side. The queen appears to be doing well and getting ready to move into the bottom box. I saw almost all worker brood, a little drone brood, and some empty queen cups, but no signs of swarming. I have not fed the hive any syrup or Fumagilin-B so everything they have done has been on their own. The trees are flowering and so are the wild strawberries and dandelions so there is plenty of forage. The weather has been dry so they have been out a lot. I will decide on medications tomorrow.
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Quick inspection
It was relatively warm yesterday so I did a quick inspection of the hives and pulled off the HopGuard.
The original hive had pollen and nectar in the bottom box and capped brood in the middle box. I swapped the bottom and middle boxes so the brood would be on the bottom. The food stores looked pretty good. I was somewhat surprised that there were not more bees, but I probably should not have been. They are tapering down to the winter population. I did not see the queen, but I also did not look too hard. They are still working on their syrup. I put duct tape over most of the entrances and reduced the size of the bottom entrance.
The split hive had capped brood in the bottom box. They were drawing comb and filling in the middle box. There is still some room in the top box. I did not see the queen, but again I did not try too hard. I was trying to minimize the time spent in the boxes since it was late in the day and breezy. Again I put duct tape over most of the entrances and reduced the size of the bottom entrance. They are also working on their syrup.
I have not put on homasote to winterize them. I am still trying to decide on whether to put in a top entrance or not. It was something I read online as an option. I wish I could have made it to the last open hive to ask questions about winterizing.
The original hive had pollen and nectar in the bottom box and capped brood in the middle box. I swapped the bottom and middle boxes so the brood would be on the bottom. The food stores looked pretty good. I was somewhat surprised that there were not more bees, but I probably should not have been. They are tapering down to the winter population. I did not see the queen, but I also did not look too hard. They are still working on their syrup. I put duct tape over most of the entrances and reduced the size of the bottom entrance.
The split hive had capped brood in the bottom box. They were drawing comb and filling in the middle box. There is still some room in the top box. I did not see the queen, but again I did not try too hard. I was trying to minimize the time spent in the boxes since it was late in the day and breezy. Again I put duct tape over most of the entrances and reduced the size of the bottom entrance. They are also working on their syrup.
I have not put on homasote to winterize them. I am still trying to decide on whether to put in a top entrance or not. It was something I read online as an option. I wish I could have made it to the last open hive to ask questions about winterizing.
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Syrup for both again.
The split was completely out of syrup. The original hive still had a little, but I pulled the jar anyway. Full jars of fall syrup. Perfect weather. Both hives are heavy. I saw lots of pollen going into the split. It might actually be heavier than the original hive right now. This will probably be the last syrup unless the weather stays warm. I still need to do a last inspection and pull the HopGuard.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)