Birth of a Queen?

So it has been a couple of weeks since I suspect that my one hive has swarmed...and nearly as long since I first noticed supercedure cells.  The need for supercedure (replacing an ill, ineffecient or in this case missing queen) came about becuase I destroyed all the swarm cells before realizing that the old queen had already left the hive.  My theory (or perhaps it is just hope) is that the worker bees immediately began creating supercedure cells and transferred a very young egg to this special cell.

Anyhow, I went back into this hive this evening and took it apart right down to the bottom level.  You can see that there are still quite a few bees which is a good sign...there were even worker bees still emerging from their cells that the old queen had laid before taking off.

I removed the regular bottom board to increase ventilation which will hopefully keep them from wanting to swarm again anytime soon.  I then went through all of the brood box frames to see if I could find any evidence of a laying worker - a common ailment in queenless hives.  I did not find any evidence thankfully!  Hopefully this means they are waiting patiently for a queen to be born.  I finally found a supercedure cell on a frame...it was fully closed so hopefully that means there is a queen developing inside and will hatch soon.  Here is a photo:

In the second/top brood box, I found even better news:

That is definitely a supercedure cell and it appears to be hatching.  I am not entirely sure if it was a queen that emerged or not as I did not keep it out long enough - wasn't sure if I'd cause it too much stress or if the bees would accept her with so much commotion.

Later on I did see another supercedure cell burst open before my very eyes and found a couple others with their bottom caps already missing.  I am really curious as to what will happen now that there appears to be multiple virgin queens within this hive.  From researching online, it sounds like they will either fight it out amongst themselves or the workers will eventually accept only one and will either drive off, starve or kill the rest.  In either case, it takes 3 days or so for the virgin queens to develop enough to take their one flight away from the hive...during which they'll mate with a whole swarm of drones from neighboring hives, collect enough sperm to last 5 years of laying 1000 eggs each day and then return to the hive to begin laying. 

This will all hopefully take place this next week while I am away on vacation.  I'll be checking the hive again real close when we get back from Michigan.  Hopefully I will find eggs and this hive will be back on track!

Strong Hive

I went in this evening with my jacket and veil and gloves to check out the stronger of the two hives.  I really wanted to check and make sure they were not preparing to swarm.  The last couple of times I've checked this hive, I've been stung...which is why I am going in with protection this time.

The hive does seem to be going quite well.  All of the frames in the two brood boxes have lots of activity.  One thing I did accomplish on the 7th was to remove the queen excluder to encourage the bees to begin drawing out comb in the honey super.  A quick glance in at the frames show that this strategy appears to have worked.  They are drawing out the comb nicely and I can even see a small amount of honey being collected.  The picture below shows all the activity atop the honey super.

In this inspection I took the entire hive apart to get at the bottom-most bottom board.  I had this in place to hold the varroa mite counting board...but I think it is hindering ventilation which can induce the bees to swarming.  I removed this board and quickly placed the bottom box back into place.  The bees really did not like that this box was moved!  I am really glad I wore the veil and gloves!  Below is a picture of the hive without its brood boxes...not really a hive anymore.  But it shows the slatted rack (which is supposed to help improve ventilation and gives the bees the feeling of more room to reduce the desire to swarm).  Beneath the slatted rack is the screened bottom board which is used for mite control.  Mites fall off the bees and through the screen where they can't climb back onto bees.  Then under this is the regular bottom board...which is what I removed.  So now the mites will fall through the screen and into the grass below.

Here are a couple pictures showing the number of bees in this hive...most of the frames were as full as this...

Here is what the hive looked like in between each frame check...I had to use a lot of smoke to clear them enough to take out the next frame...

To top off this wonderful inspection, guess what I found???

I did not have time to go into the other hive...I will give it a couple more days and will check to see if the supercedure cells appear to be working. 

Supercedure Cells - Trying to Replace the Monarch

August 7, 2010

Wow...I really showed my "rookiness" when I went in and cut out all those swarm cells.  I should have evaluated whether they had already swarmed before I did that.  I believe now that they very likely did swarm based upon the number of swarm cells I found and the low number of bees in the hive and the near total absence of food in the hive. 

So I went back to the "swarmed" hive to see if my fears were correct...they were.  They are now trying to create a queen all over again...this time with supercedure cells meaning the original queen is absent.  Here is a picture of supercedure cells...they look similar to swarm cells except that they are near the top of the frame whereas swarm cells are near the bottom.

Anyhow my only hope now for this hive is that they can produce a new queen...otherwise I'll have to go and buy one.  I'll go in and check in a week or so to see what I find.  In the meantime I am going to add a couple pollen patties to help them replenish their food supplies...will also cook up a batch of syrup for them.  The objective now is to get their population and food stores built up enough so they can survive the winter.

The other hive still seems very strong...there are definitely many more bees in that hive.  They also seem more aggressive...I've been stung both times I've checked them in the past couple days...so I haven't been able to do a full inspection.  Will need to go in with my gear on to ensure they are not about to swarm as well!

Swarm Cell City

Went into the hives this evening which is something I've wanted to do for quite some time...but I've been busy splitting firewood and transporting it to the house.  Now I wish I had taken the time to check on the bees earlier!  :-(

I first checked the honey super to see if they had done anything...nope, not a thing.  No comb drawn out or anything.  I then took the super off as well as the top hive body.  I knew something was up because the top hive body was not nearly as heavy as I remember it being last time... 

Started the real inspection in the bottom box...  Found lots of brood at varying stages...tiny grain-sized eggs that must have just been laid recently as well as larger larvae.  This is a good sign because it at the very least means there is a queen present...right?  I hope so...  I never did find the queen but I did find what I feared...several, no MANY swarm cells.  Here are just a couple...

This might give you an idea of just how many I found in this one hive...

And here is a closeup of the queen larvae and what I imagine is the special food given to them called Royal Jelly...this special food is what helps make them a queen rather than worker or drone.

Anyhow, my suspicion is that with this many swarm cells present the hive has likely experienced at least one swarm.  Why haven't they moved up into the honey super if they were feeling crowded?  Damn bees!  So it would appear that this hive is half the number it ought to be at this time of year and has a fraction of the honey stores that it ought to have...the effects of swarming.

The news from the second hive was slightly better...maybe.  I found only a couple of very small incomplete swarm cells.  The top hive body seemed heavier though the amount of honey in it still didn't seem like it was previously or what it ought to be.  And they had not moved up into the honey super... 

So, now what to do?  The danger of them swarming so late in the season is that there numbers and honey stores are so low that they might not recover enought to survive the winter.  With that in mind, I removed the queen excluder so hopefully they will feel more welcome in the super box.  I will also make up some syrup to feed them to try and get there stores replenished.

I have some thoughts on what I could have done differently...

1. Sprayed the foundation of the honey super frames with syrup to encourage the bees to draw comb out on them.
2. Provided syrup when I added the honey super to give them easily available material for drawing out all that comb.
3. Leave off the queen excluder until the comb was all drawn out and then add the excluder.  Eventually with the queen being exculed, the brood that was laid in the honey super cells would hatch and would presumably be replaced with honey.

Who knows if any of the above would have helped...but they are strategies I will definitely keep in mind for next time!

All this likely means that any chance of my harvesting a crop of honey this year is out the window.  Oh well...from the beginning I really didn't think that would be possible...starting from scratch means the bees have to expend a lot of energy to draw out the comb...something they won't have to do much of next year.

Oh, one more little tidbit of news...saw my first varroa mite.  Lovely.  you can see it on the lower bee in this picture.

It was the only one I spotted but where there is one, there are many...and they tend to explode in numbers very quickly.  To help mitigate the problem, I removed the drone frames that were mostly drawn out and had drones either in larvae stage or were actively hatching.  Mites tend to favor drone brood as they incubate the longest.  By removing and freezing the drone comb/brood, you also kill the mites...which helps to keep their numbers in check.  This weekend I will also do a powdered sugar treatment...sprinkle enough on to get them all dusted real nice.  This causes the bees to groom each other...which knocks the mites to the bottom of the hive and through the screened bottom where they can not get back onto a bee.  Let's hope it works.

First Honey Supers!

I went in and checked the hives on Tuesday evening...7/20.  The bees were very calm and pleasant...didn't need veil or gloves and minimal smoke.  Couple times I had an individual bee chase me around but I smoked the heck out of her and the hive and that seemed to distract her enough.

With two deeps on, it is a bit more difficult to do a full check of the hive.  First I had to loosen the top deep enough to remove it...and boy was it heavy!!  I then set it aside and started going through the bottom deep.  The frames were pretty much all in use with brood, pollen, honey storage, etc.  Found the queen on one of the frames where it was evident that brood had recently hatched.  I thanked her for all her hard work...  I went through the hive far enough to check out the drone frame.  I need to start practicing swapping out drone frames and freezing them over night.  This is done to kill off large number of varroa mites that tend to favor drone brood due to their incubation period being longer than worker brood.  Killing off drones does not harm the hive really as they don't do much work anyway.  Their only purpose is to mate with virgin queens...

Anyhow, I put the top deep back on and began going through those frames.  Quite a few were packed full of pollen and/or honey.  Nearly all of the frames were in use...time to put on a honey super for sure!  Between the top deep and the honey super I placed a "queen excluder" which is like a grate that is sized to allow worker bees through but the queen out.  This will ensure that the honey frames will be just that...and won't have eggs and larvae mixed in when it comes time to extract...yuck!

I neglected to take pictures this time...:(  Bummer.  I'll go in again in a week or so to see how they progress with the honey super...I'll be sure to take pictures then.

New Beekeeper Anxiety - An 'oops' Moment

These events actually happened a couple of weeks ago when the temps were really hot.  There was a ton of activity at the entrance to the hives.  I got down close to get a good look at what was going on and saw a couple of bees "wrestling".  I immediately jumped to the conclusion that my hive(s) was being attacked/robbed by other hives.  I know now that this was not the case...

Anyhow, one way to stop robbing or to at least give your bees a fighting chance is to reduce the size of the entrance.  By cutting it down to the size of a bee or two, that is much easier for the guard bees to defend and keep out intruders.  So that is what I did.

About 5 - 10 minutes later, I was surprised to find my hive looking like this:

Holy smokes - it really was being robbed!!!  Not really...but that was my first thought...again completely wrong!  After a little research on the web I found that bees will do this when the hive gets too hot inside...bees will vacate the hive so that it cools off and they'll camp out on the box and "fan" it with their wings.  Pretty amazing, eh?

I removed the reducer and the bees eventually went back inside...  Silly beekeeper...I nearly cooked my bees!

Birth of a Honey Bee

Went into the hives this afternoon just to see how they were doing.  At first I was concerned that there was some robbing going on as there was a lot of activity at the entrance.  But I think it was just a beautiful day and the bees were real busy.  More "new beekeeper anxiety", I guess.
The visit went quite well.  Was going to try it without any smoke even but after I opened up the first hive and removed the feeder, I had a bee start a staring match with me.  I decided then I better bring in the big guns...

The bees have begun to move up into the second story of the hive.  The middle frames are drawn out and I can see eggs and larvae so the queen even is spending time up there.  There was also a good amount of pollen and what looked like honey.  Most of the frames in the top section though were still quite bare.  I think I might make up another batch of syrup to feed them...that might at least help them draw out the frames quicker.  Before doing so, I am going to clean up the feeders some as they are getting pretty nasty.

I did not locate the queen in either hive but now that I know she is there, I don't need to find her every time.  I found plenty of eggs that must have been just laid recently...tinier than a grain of rice but still quite visible.  Some frames had a strange brown color to them and were pretty bare.  I wondered what that was all about until I saw the following:

You can see the brownish color of the empty cells.  At the bottom, the capped cells are capped brood.  There are baby bees in those cells.  And if you look close, you can see several where the cappings are being eaten away by the bees working their way out.  The next several pictures show the birth of a honey bee.  Happens hundreds of times every day in the hives...but hey, it was my first time witnessing the event.