In beekeeping, I am learning that one needs to be patient. Earlier this spring, I tried to create a new hive by taking 5 frames (loaded with bees, pollen and honey) and creating a Nuc. Since then, I have talked about how this failed for many reasons. The main reason is that I tried to rush things. It was too early in the spring to do this. We had had some very warm weather early in the spring and I thought it would stay that way. How many years have I lived in New England? Most of my life and I'm no spring chicken. How is it that I can still be fooled by some warm days in early May? Well, I was fooled and I believe the bees in the newly created Nuc all died or went to find someplace warmer, except for the few who were in the Nuc when I picked it up to bring it home.
I tried to get ahead of myself and the outcome was that I got nowhere. Because the hive...last year's hive...was impacted as a result of taking 5 frames from it. In retrospect, I think I may have put the queen in the Nuc because the next thing to happen is that last year's hive (#1) did not thrive after that. It got so dismal that I wanted to go buy a new queen and tried.
But a Charles Andros up in Walpole, NH, who I contacted to buy a queen, called me to find out what was going on with my hives...I had a new Nuc I bought that was thriving, and my #1 hive that was not. His suggestion was to combine the hives. He said he didn't want to sell me a queen because that probably wouldn't have fixed the problem with hive #1. I probably didn't have enough brood there for the hive to survive and of course, it had no queen either. Doomed. I loved it that he wasn't trying to sell me something. He was trying to help. And his suggestion appears to have worked. Here's what I did, from the bottom:
Bottom board
deep hive (from #1)
deep hive (mostly #2)
queen excluder (so queen stays below making babies)
Super (for honey production)
Top Hive feeder (which I should not have put on there so I must take it off today...apparently shouldn't use feeder if there is a super on the hive)
Top Cover
I've been watching the hive and it seems back to normal, with bees loaded with pollen coming into the hive regularly. Later this summer, hopefully, I will try splitting my hive again so that I can have two hives... early enough for them to move from a Nuc to a hive before the cold weather arrives. If that doesn't work, I will wait until next spring or early summer to make a Nuc...I will be patient; I will be patient; I will be patient......maybe next time I'll remember how the weather is in New England.
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Thursday, June 13, 2013
In retrospect - the early spring nuc was too early
I am looking back at my posts and see that I tried to make a Nuc way too early. Early May is not a good time to do it. I should have waited until mid-summer when the hive was strong...then do it. But I was over anxious and I think I have caused some of these issues I'm having due to being impatient!
I knew beekeeping wouldn't always be easy
The saga of my bees....or lack thereof!
Hive #2 continues to flourish. In fact, I think that when I can get into the hive again, I may add a super because they are running out of space in that deep hive. But I may not need to with what I hope is the solution to Hive #1's issues.
Hive #1 is still struggling. All week I have been thinking, reading and having conversations about what my next steps are for #1. One person I talked with was Charles Andros, a NH beekeeper who I didn't know. He was great, spending a good amount of time on the phone with me and not selling me the queen bee I had asked to buy. Instead he offered me some good advice.
His advice was to merge the two hives. He feared just adding another queen to Hive #2 might not get me anywhere because it might end up the same way with the queen dying. He said something about not enough brood, I think. (It was a lot to absorb).
But I did understand some other stuff :).
I remove the queen cell in Hive#1...the one I spotted last week during an inspection. If that queen is born, one of the queens will be killed. It's best it's the current queen in Hive #2 because we know what she is and she's clearly producing well based on the growth in that hive. I sort of hate to upset the balance.
Next I will add the new hive to the top of the old hive with a sheet or two of newspaper between them. The bees will begin to adjust to their new friends in the upper hive while they are eating through the newspaper. By the time they do that, they should be acclimated. I will also add the queen excluder under the newspaper.
For those of you who don't know, a queen excluder is a a thin cover that has, in my case, metal slots that bees can fit through. But the queen can't fit through it. By adding that, should there be another queen down below, she wouldn't be able to get up to where Hive#2's bees are in the deep hive above. After a few weeks, I'd remove the excluder.
I sure hope this works. The idea is that by doing this, the new hive can bring back the older hive and later on this season, I can make another nuc to try to expand into two smaller hives rather than one large hive. I'm not sure how I'll handle these deep hives. I won't be able to lift them off.
I may need to reduce Hive #1 which has two deeps, by consolidating into one deep. I can handle two deep hives but not three...not if they need to be lifted. I'll think about this for the next few days until I can do this. The weather here has been too rainy to want to go into the hives. I'll wait for a sunny day, hopefully Sunday.
Stay tuned.
Hive #2 continues to flourish. In fact, I think that when I can get into the hive again, I may add a super because they are running out of space in that deep hive. But I may not need to with what I hope is the solution to Hive #1's issues.
Hive #1 is still struggling. All week I have been thinking, reading and having conversations about what my next steps are for #1. One person I talked with was Charles Andros, a NH beekeeper who I didn't know. He was great, spending a good amount of time on the phone with me and not selling me the queen bee I had asked to buy. Instead he offered me some good advice.
His advice was to merge the two hives. He feared just adding another queen to Hive #2 might not get me anywhere because it might end up the same way with the queen dying. He said something about not enough brood, I think. (It was a lot to absorb).
But I did understand some other stuff :).
I remove the queen cell in Hive#1...the one I spotted last week during an inspection. If that queen is born, one of the queens will be killed. It's best it's the current queen in Hive #2 because we know what she is and she's clearly producing well based on the growth in that hive. I sort of hate to upset the balance.
Next I will add the new hive to the top of the old hive with a sheet or two of newspaper between them. The bees will begin to adjust to their new friends in the upper hive while they are eating through the newspaper. By the time they do that, they should be acclimated. I will also add the queen excluder under the newspaper.
For those of you who don't know, a queen excluder is a a thin cover that has, in my case, metal slots that bees can fit through. But the queen can't fit through it. By adding that, should there be another queen down below, she wouldn't be able to get up to where Hive#2's bees are in the deep hive above. After a few weeks, I'd remove the excluder.
I sure hope this works. The idea is that by doing this, the new hive can bring back the older hive and later on this season, I can make another nuc to try to expand into two smaller hives rather than one large hive. I'm not sure how I'll handle these deep hives. I won't be able to lift them off.
I may need to reduce Hive #1 which has two deeps, by consolidating into one deep. I can handle two deep hives but not three...not if they need to be lifted. I'll think about this for the next few days until I can do this. The weather here has been too rainy to want to go into the hives. I'll wait for a sunny day, hopefully Sunday.
Stay tuned.
Monday, June 10, 2013
The queen bee is dead
Hive #1 - The queen I put into the hive in its cage is dead. That is a waste of $30, plus costs of going to get the bee. Oh well. It could have been worse. One of my friends, or I should say a friend of a friend, had the bees in a brand new nuc swarm the next day. It's difficult to understand some of this...but not so difficult to understand why some people don't continue beekeeping. It's a rather expensive start-up. These issues I've had are not uncommon...not at all!
My latest plan is to wait for the bees to make a new queen. If bees live in the wild all on their own, they can make their own queen. I need to go in and fully inspect the hive to look for eggs to see if there might be one now. I just don't want to disturb them so I'm not sure if I'll go into the hive quite yet. It's getting close to a month since I realized I no longer had a queen so perhaps they have one or are close to having made one on their own. I don't think so yet based on the lack of pollen gathering.
I keep observing the hive almost daily and haven't seen enough pollen gathering. Yet when I looked into the hive yesterday to ensure the queen got out of her cage, and found her dead, I did see the few frames I looked at with uncapped pollen on them. So some bees must be gathering pollen but I saw none yesterday and only a few bees loaded up with it a few days ago. I think the outside activity is a good indicator of what's going on inside...or not going on inside.
Hive #2, the new hive, needs to be opened up. The front entrance still has the entrance reducer on. I need to now allow the full opening so the bees can more easily get in and out. Bees were coming in yesterday, I noticed, and it looked like a traffic jam out there. I'll do that today.
I also want to check how full the deep hive is at this time. It's been a month and the bees had 5 frames to fill up. Once they get to two frames that are still empty, I'll add a super to give them room to grow. I only want to use supers on that hive since they are shorter and lighter. Manipulating deep hives was too heavy for me to manage alone. I couldn't lift them last year so had to figure out a way to slide them over. So I'll probably add two supers to equal one deep hive. I want them to grow numbers of bees right now so they need that additional space to grow.
Let me just add that this new hive looks like #1 looked last year. Healthy, busy bees intent on growing and producing. It's fun to watch them. I am looking forward to seeing both my hives looking like this one does right now!
My latest plan is to wait for the bees to make a new queen. If bees live in the wild all on their own, they can make their own queen. I need to go in and fully inspect the hive to look for eggs to see if there might be one now. I just don't want to disturb them so I'm not sure if I'll go into the hive quite yet. It's getting close to a month since I realized I no longer had a queen so perhaps they have one or are close to having made one on their own. I don't think so yet based on the lack of pollen gathering.
I keep observing the hive almost daily and haven't seen enough pollen gathering. Yet when I looked into the hive yesterday to ensure the queen got out of her cage, and found her dead, I did see the few frames I looked at with uncapped pollen on them. So some bees must be gathering pollen but I saw none yesterday and only a few bees loaded up with it a few days ago. I think the outside activity is a good indicator of what's going on inside...or not going on inside.
Hive #2, the new hive, needs to be opened up. The front entrance still has the entrance reducer on. I need to now allow the full opening so the bees can more easily get in and out. Bees were coming in yesterday, I noticed, and it looked like a traffic jam out there. I'll do that today.
I also want to check how full the deep hive is at this time. It's been a month and the bees had 5 frames to fill up. Once they get to two frames that are still empty, I'll add a super to give them room to grow. I only want to use supers on that hive since they are shorter and lighter. Manipulating deep hives was too heavy for me to manage alone. I couldn't lift them last year so had to figure out a way to slide them over. So I'll probably add two supers to equal one deep hive. I want them to grow numbers of bees right now so they need that additional space to grow.
Let me just add that this new hive looks like #1 looked last year. Healthy, busy bees intent on growing and producing. It's fun to watch them. I am looking forward to seeing both my hives looking like this one does right now!
Friday, June 7, 2013
A new queen for Hive #1
I received input on what's wrong with my hive and was told I need a new queen. Once I have that, things should improve.
I decided to purchase a queen rather than wait for the bees to make their own. Summers are too short here to waste up to a month while that happens. I purchased mine from Jodi Turner who sold me one of her Carniolan queen bees.
The Carniolan bees are resistant to mites and are gentle. I don't care as long as they produce honey.
I added it to the hive on Wednesday evening and am told not to look in the hive until Sunday, to see if she got out of her cage. For those of you who don't know, this little cage has a sugar plug that the bees and the queen eat through until the hole is large enough to release the queen. If they haven't done that by Sunday, I'm to help the process along. We'll see how it goes.
I know I can be over anxious sometimes but yesterday I took my binoculars out to look at the hives toward the end of the day when the bees are bringing in pollen. In the new hive (#2) bees were coming in loaded with pollen and there was a continual stream of bees going into the hive. It looks normal and good.
Hive #1 showed me a bit of promise. I actually saw a few bees going in loaded with pollen but not nearly enough. I was happy because it is more than I saw the other day. It made me wonder if the new queen was already out but I doubt it would have been that quick. And if it was that quick, the colony could have killed her as an intruder. Having time to get used to the queen is very important or she'll be killed.
I decided to purchase a queen rather than wait for the bees to make their own. Summers are too short here to waste up to a month while that happens. I purchased mine from Jodi Turner who sold me one of her Carniolan queen bees.
The Carniolan bees are resistant to mites and are gentle. I don't care as long as they produce honey.
I added it to the hive on Wednesday evening and am told not to look in the hive until Sunday, to see if she got out of her cage. For those of you who don't know, this little cage has a sugar plug that the bees and the queen eat through until the hole is large enough to release the queen. If they haven't done that by Sunday, I'm to help the process along. We'll see how it goes.
I know I can be over anxious sometimes but yesterday I took my binoculars out to look at the hives toward the end of the day when the bees are bringing in pollen. In the new hive (#2) bees were coming in loaded with pollen and there was a continual stream of bees going into the hive. It looks normal and good.
Hive #1 showed me a bit of promise. I actually saw a few bees going in loaded with pollen but not nearly enough. I was happy because it is more than I saw the other day. It made me wonder if the new queen was already out but I doubt it would have been that quick. And if it was that quick, the colony could have killed her as an intruder. Having time to get used to the queen is very important or she'll be killed.
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Oh oh...Hive #1 in trouble - there's a list of issues
I've been observing hive #1 over the past few weeks. Prior to that I had been happy they made it through the winter. But something is wrong.
1. I think I have more drones than worker bees
2. Some of the frames in one deep hive didn't look right. They were spotty and what was there looked too dark.
3. Only saw a couple of eggs but even they didn't look right because there was more than one of them in the cell. I think that's the same overabundance of drones issue.
4. The new hive has worker bees coming in with bags of pollen. I saw none go into the old hive today.
5. None of the bees in the old hive were drinking the sugar water. I think they had enough honey already in the hive so they didn't need it....hopefully that's why.
6. The bottom board has some fine brown powdery stuff on the floor.
7. I don't believe there's a queen anymore. There WAS one because several weeks ago, I saw eggs and brood and thought everything was fine. So now, given I just spent $130 on another Nuc, I will wait for the bees to make a queen. It can take up to a month. I suspect they've been without one for a few weeks. Now I am wondering if I didn't ruin things by trying to make my own Nuc from that hive. Maybe, by mistake, I sent off the queen. Clearly, something happened. I hope the hive is strong enough to even be able to make a queen.
I don't know yet what is going on is really bad or if I'm overreacting to some of the symptoms above. I think I'll copy this entry and send it off to my beekeeper mentor to see what she has to say.
What I'll do or have done in the meantime
1. I think I have more drones than worker bees
2. Some of the frames in one deep hive didn't look right. They were spotty and what was there looked too dark.
3. Only saw a couple of eggs but even they didn't look right because there was more than one of them in the cell. I think that's the same overabundance of drones issue.
4. The new hive has worker bees coming in with bags of pollen. I saw none go into the old hive today.
5. None of the bees in the old hive were drinking the sugar water. I think they had enough honey already in the hive so they didn't need it....hopefully that's why.
6. The bottom board has some fine brown powdery stuff on the floor.
7. I don't believe there's a queen anymore. There WAS one because several weeks ago, I saw eggs and brood and thought everything was fine. So now, given I just spent $130 on another Nuc, I will wait for the bees to make a queen. It can take up to a month. I suspect they've been without one for a few weeks. Now I am wondering if I didn't ruin things by trying to make my own Nuc from that hive. Maybe, by mistake, I sent off the queen. Clearly, something happened. I hope the hive is strong enough to even be able to make a queen.
I don't know yet what is going on is really bad or if I'm overreacting to some of the symptoms above. I think I'll copy this entry and send it off to my beekeeper mentor to see what she has to say.
What I'll do or have done in the meantime
- Give bees some patties I made to help with varroa mites that is made with Crisco and sugar. It helps bees shed off the mites. You just place a patty on top of the frames and it'll take them about a month to eat it. I put one in each hive as a preventive measure.
- Removed the bad looking frames from the hive and replace them with frames that were drawn out and clean.
- Clean that bottom board of that brown powdery stuff by hosing it down...scrubbing it with a brush. I'm hesitant to disturb them again so soon after disrupting them over the weekend, replacing frames, etc. but will do this task later on this week.
- Removed both the top hive feeder and the super from Hive #1. I don't need either at this time.
- Think about medicating bees for mites now. If I decide to medicate the bees, now is the time...IF they'll go for the sugar water. I'd need to remove all the honey from the hive, I think, in order for them to go for the sugar water (with medication).
- Watch Hive #1 very closely and monitor the activity while I hope and wait for them to make a new queen.
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