12/28 Hive check

i've been .dead bees in the snow but not a huge number but I was anxious to look inside the hive for a quick peek.

I changed up the cedar chip pillow at the top housed in a super with a screen bottom.  The top of the deep below the screen was filled with bs so I was happy to see that.  I did nothing except pull out the bottom board to see if there were dead bees there.  Nothing there.

Then I noticed that the front entrance had a lot of bees in front of the opening so I unscrewed the mouse guard and pulled out a lot of dead bees.  I then closed it back up.  No bees came out to greet me while I was doing that.  However a few had come out while I was changing out the pillow.

Overall I'm happy there are still bees in there.  I know I left them plenty of food by taking no honey for myself this year.  Fingers crossed.

10/28 quick check

I opened the hive today because it was the only day this week where the weather will be warm enough.  I probably should have taken it all apart and checked thoroughly but I didn't.  I wanted to see how many bees I have...LOTS.  And that is in the top deep.  There are three deeps.

The top deep has 8 frames and the feeder which takes up almost two frames worth of space.  I filled the feeder with sugar syrup.

I wanted to look at a few frames but got stung right away and it wasn't really warm enough to keep the hive open for long.  But I did see they were making wax on an empty frame so they are still busy creating space.

I'm so pleased to see a lot of bees.  I have treated for varroa twice.  Once with the Apivar strips and one with oxilic acid on paper laid over the top of the bottom deep. Very few mites have fallen off the bees though.  Some did at first.  But now I think I must leave them be until a nice day and I don't know when that will be.

I'm also thinking about not wrapping them this year.  I've heard of those who have had good luck not wrapping up the hives.  But I would move the two other empty hives close to the tall one and maybe  a piece of stiff insulation to the more windy side.  And close up the entrance.  I'm not sure yet.

I had added popsicle sticks to the top of the inside cover last month so that the sticks raise the outer cover just enough to remove any  moisture building up inside.  I saw no wetness on inner cover so  it looked to me like it was working well.  I also have cedar filled pillows I could add if needed but didn't want any more height to deal with. 

IF these bees survive the winter, I will do a split.  Perhaps I should have done a split this summer, in hindsight. We'll just have to see what happens over the winter and how many I lose.  Having an extra hive is something I want if only for comparison purposes and would like to  do it early to let bees make a queen.

9/27/19 - All's well

I see I haven't posted anything this month, for good reasons. I had a family emergency and lost a brother unexpectedly, which turned my focus to family rather than my bees.

Today I did a few things:

• Added mouse guard
• Added feeder to the top
• Repositioned this tall hive since it was leaning forward and as soon as I touched the first box, I stopped it from tipping over!  Oh boy, what a disaster that would have been.
• Upset my bees and got a few stings today
• Added Apivar strips to the two top deeps.  The bottom deep still has the Oxilic acid paper towels there so I thought I  may need extra help with the varroa since my bottom board didn't have  many mites on it.
• I added a new sticky board to see if I see more mites than I have been seeing

There still appears to be a queen since I saw brood in the middle deep and upper deep.  I didn't disturb the lower deep since I would have torn the oxilic paper.

Lots of honey, capped and ready to eat when needed.  I'm not taking any for myself this fall. I added the feeder so I will begin adding sugar syrup very soon but don't think they need it yet.

I'm worried about the height of my hive.  I fear something bumped into it which is what made it tippy. But it's too late, I think, to create a Nuc and have it winter over. I may get a few more cement blocks to add under the front so that it can't tip off.

8/25/19 - Hive check and varroa treatment and mite check

I was anxious to get into the hive with all the talk of mites this week and saw that this is the exact time of year when they begin to really multiply.  The last time I checked, I didn't have any.  But I decided that today was the day I was going to do the Oxilic acid/glycerin treatment on the work towel.  To me, out of all I've read, that seemed to be the easiest solution and it's supposed to be very effective. I followed these instructions.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg1Vm-v2pRY
We'll see.

I also added the sticky board again but I should have done that three days ago so I can see how the solution works.  But it's too late now so I'll at least have a count in three days and then check it again in a few weeks and hopefully will see less than I'll have on Wednesday when I pull and count.

I was anxious to see if I had drone brood, still thinking of last year when my hive was overcome by drones.  The few cells I saw, I scraped off to get rid of them but also to see if they had mites in the brood.  They did.  But my green drone frames had no brood this time.  They were actually filling one corner with honey.  Whatever.  They have space to lay if they want to.

There's a lot of brood throughout the three deeps and a lot of nectar and capped honey.   I'm not taking any honey this year so that they have plenty to winter over.  In the spring, if there's any left, I can see if there's enough for me to take some.

It's not about the honey this year.  It's all about keeping the hive going!.

I did notice several queen cells, hatched or otherwise empty.

I also got my first sting of the year.  I've had much more aggressive bees than these. They probably thought, if they think at all, that I was going to take away  honey.

8/10 hive check = very pleased

I had added a sticky board 3 days ago so I removed that to check on mites.  I found one.  I couldn't believe that was all but there was debris but only one mite.  I use a 10X loop so I can really see them.  One.  Unreal.  I wonder how that could be when other years I've lost hives, I'm told, due to the number of varroa. or absconding or other.  I wonder if this new vendor I purchased from did some sort of treatment that has protected them.  I don't know but I'm glad it isn't an issue at the moment.  I will keep checking and treat when necessary.

Things otherwise looked great in the hive, now with three deeps and a super.  I added that third deep a few weeks ago because I had no brood and lots of nectar and honey.  But I needed brood and there wasn't enough places for the queen (which I wasn't sure I had) to lay any eggs. 

I have been on alert for drone activity after last year when the drones took over my hive and re-queening didn't work out so I lost the hive.  Finally they are working on the drone frame so I removed this and plopped it into the freezer.  I will put it back into the hive today or tomorrow. I shook the live bees away from the hive hoping drones wouldn't find their way back. It looks like I pulled it at the right time before the capped brood hatches/

A green frame, with larger cells, is used to encourage drones to build and hatch there so you can remove drones from the hive. It's done by freezing the frame for a day or two and then put it back into the hive.  The other bees will clean it up. Stay alert with these because if you let them hatch, they could take over your hive.

A beautiful frame; capped honey around the edges, capped brood in the center area, some nector in the few remaining cells.

The frame above is just what you want to see.  Capped brood and capped honey.  I didn't see any eggs in the cells...on this frame.  But I had a few other frames with lots of open cell brood in various stages. 

There was very little action in the super. The bees seems to be concentrating on building numbers and that's what we want right now. I don't plan to take any honey this year.  I want to see if I can get this through the winter as one hive, and if enough (any) survive the winter, I'll split it and then see if I can sell the nuc.  I really want only one hive so maybe...but I'm getting way ahead of myself, given my previous failures at this wonderful hobby.

Beeing Stubborn!

7/26 added drawn frame or two to the hive

I went through the hive yesterday and worried I didn't see any brood. However today I saw some  Not a lot but some.

Yesterday, I had added empty, undrawn frames to give the packed hive more space and added another deep.  But I worried that, IF there's a queen in there, she needs space now. 

I had a few frames in the freezer that are kind of old but at least they were already drawn out so I added it to the new deep where I saw another frame or two with some uncapped brood. I'm hoping it's not a drone brood.  We'll see.  At least I'll know I gave them room to grow.

I did see some queen cells that look empty.  I also saw a lot of craziness around the hive a week or two ago and a youtube video showed similar activity when a queen was heading out for her mating run.  That could be what was happening.  Time will tell

Hive check heavy with nectar but no real brood

I'm not sure I have a queen anymore.  I have a lot of bees right now, and a lot of honey and nectar.   In fact, the second deep was way too heavy for me to lift so I removed all but three frames from there to move it.  Then I decided to add a third deep since there was so little room in the second.  They haven't made much headway in the super I added but I also added that to the top.  Right now, I just wanted to give them room to grow....hoping there is a queen somewhere that I may have missed.

I saw very little brood, but did see some eggs on a few frames. I also saw some empty cells with black dot in them.   I wonder if they were mites.  I just fear that I could be drone heavy again.  I'm not sure.

But I did what I could for now as I'm heading to vacation and won't have time to deal with anything more than what I did today.  I checked all boxes and all frames today and cleaned out any comb not needed.

When I get back in a week or so, I plan to do a mite check and an oxalic acid treatment if needed then. I am not going to get a queen.  Seems to me the norm of the life of a queen should last more than 2 months!