Watched a bee hatch before my very eyes!

I watched a bee be born a few days ago...at least one.  So I believe I witnessed some of the last batch of bees to be born this season.

What worries me is that I just didn't see a huge number of bees.  It seems that by this time of year, I should see more.  But I saw a bit of brood...not much.  And the bees hatching...I wonder if "hatching" is the right term.  Being born then.

The hive is not the usual setup.  I have all the brood and most of the activity in the upper deep.  And the lower deep is the honey stores.  And the stores aren't all that great either.  I just don't know if I have enough bees to cluster and make it through the winter.

I have closed off the entrance to the 3 inch width with the mouse guard over that.  I just have the two deeps there now.  I will add pollen patties very soon and will need to replenish them often this winter to ensure they have enough food.

At this point, I'll order another nuc soon, for next spring.  I had hoped to go into the winter with a very strong hive but that's not what I'm seeing.

I didn't see the queen there this time but that's not unusual, but with the fewer bees on the frames, I think I should have seen her.  But I didn't check every single frame either.  I spot checked. So that could easily be why I didn't spot her.  She had been active fairly recently given I watched some of her babies be born.

Always a mystery.  I do hope, and will continue to do what I think are the right things :) and try to get these girls through the winter.

brood chamber in upper deep

I feel like I must have switched the deeps around but I really don't think I did.  During today's inspection here was my action list:

• remove supers and take honey for me
• add varroa mite strips to the two deeps
• add sugar water in the top hive feeder
• inspect all frames.
• add mouse guard to hive opening
• mow the grass around the hive in the fenced area

I saw good brood patterns and many eggs, capped and uncapped honey.  It looked good...except all this was in the upper deep.  The lower deep had a lot of uncapped honey; some brood pattern, some capped honey.  I'm worried now that they won't have enough honey stores to get them through the winter.

There is a lot of pollen again now with the goldenrod in full bloom.  I hope they can fill up some of that uncapped honey and cover for their own use this winter.

I did buy pollen patties to help them later on.  I guess we'll see what the next weeks show.

I really wanted to add another deep above the other two but that's probably something I'll want to do in the spring.  Or if I can, I'll start another hive in the spring.  But first I need to see these through the winter.

puzzling inspection

I went into the hive this week...just a week after my last inspection.  This time, I think I saw the queen in the most outside frame in the lower deep.

But I didn't see any eggs in the lower deep this time.  I saw some eggs in the upper deep though, but not many.  And I saw one frame that had a bunch of drone brood so I removed that frame.

There were still a lot of  bees but I'm not really sure what's going on right now. Could it be a new queen I saw?  I did find an empty queen cell so maybe the queen I saw was a new queen that hasn't had her flight yet.

Last week's sugar syrup was gone so I added more.  I left the supers on the hive for another few weeks and then I'll take off what I can and hope to see more eggs in the hive.

It's mushroom foraging season.  At this time of year, my free time is spent walking in the woods looking for mushrooms.  Yesterday I found some lobster mushrooms and various fresh boletes, including porcini.  There were others but weren't fresh enough to take.  Then time was spent cleaning and frying up.  Then into the freezer.  Sometimes I dry the harvest but it depends.  Some mushrooms dry up very well, like black trumpets.  Others, like chanterelle, get rubbery if you dry them so I fry them up and then freeze them.  That works well.

Taking off some honey

When checking on the hive yesterday, I see several frames in the supers full and ready so I took off 4 frames that I will extract.  I will leave the rest there for now.

When I looked into the honey stores deep, I found capped and uncapped honey...more capped than not.  I also saw brood in various stages and bees bringing in yellow pollen.  I think the dearth is over with goldenrod blooming.  But in my yard, there's not much goldenrod blooming yet.  Not sure I'll have that much this year since I deadheaded them last year.  I think that was a mistake so I won't do it again.  I want the goldenrod for the bees.  Not so good for my sinuses but it's the price you pay I guess.

I was pleased to see the activity in the hive.

However, when I removed the top hive feeder, it had a lot of yellow jackets in there dead.  I have a yellow jacket nest somewhere in my porch ceiling.  As I read more about the dearth at this time of year, I read that stealing is a major concern with other insects wanting the sugar water or honey.  I decided to close off the venting.  I have holes in two boxes, a deep and a super, which I drilled to give more ventilation in the hive.  I plugged them up with corks yesterday.  I also added back in the entrance reducer at it's widest opening to further close up the entrances to the hive.

I had been noticing a lot of flurry there at the hive and I think it was due to fending off predators. Hopefully they can now relax a bit and not use their energy to fight them off.

And I filled the feeder with  more sugar water to keep the bees fed in case there's not enough flowering plants to satisfy.

It's time to begin thinking about wintering over the bees.  I will need to buy bales of hay one at a time since I no longer have a truck.  That is, unless I can figure out another alternative.

Adding room in the brood box so queen can lay eggs in them

I noticed the other day that my brood chamber had a few frames with uncapped honey and pollen on them...but no eggs or larvae.  So today, I swapped them for a few frames with comb so that the queen has a place to lay eggs. I wanted to do this before they ramp up production again with the goldenrod in a week or two. These were the only deep frames I had with comb on them...at least that's what I thought until I saw I had a few in the freezer from last year.  I guess I should extract what's in there and put them back into production.

I may need the frames from the freezer soon since the two frames I added will need some amount of cleanup. I've heard that it's faster for them to make new comb than to clean up old comb.  Not sure if that's true or not but I do have many frames with  no comb at all.  I thought I'd start off with them next spring to give them plenty of time to build.

Thanks to the "fat bee man" on youtube for the advice.  He's a great resource to supplement the local folks who also provide so much good information and learning.

Hive inspection today - 7/16/16

I went into the hive today to see how things are going.  I needed to look in the brood box since I had seen  some comb when looking through the bottom opening and figured there had to be a lot of misplaced comb down there.  And I didn't get to that box the last time I inspected so it needed to be looked at.

It really wasn't too bad but I took off the comb and checked the frames.  I could see some uncapped honey on a few frames, but also saw just the right mix of capped honey, brood and pollen.  And there sure are enough bees!  I didn't see the queen but saw eggs in cells so I know she's in there somewhere if I didn't kill her in this inspection.  I did see a few queen cells which I left alone.  They were actually building a queen cell on the bottom board too but I removed that one and left the other two I had seen on frames.

I upset the bees today because I got into each box. As I went out just now to take the photo below, I had bees surrounding me and they aren't happy.  I'll leave them alone now for a few weeks.

the leaning hive... I put extra cement block to steady it but it won't get fixed until next time I take the entire hive apart like today. I didn't realize was leaning until it was all put back together.

Here's what I did today:

• Removed misplaced comb which I'll use for candles later in the year
• Checkerboarded the two supers.  The bottom super was almost full so since we have a few more months where they should be making honey, I thought I'd give this technique a try.
• Inspected for queen and brood
• Checked for honey stores in second box (these are filling up nicely!)
• Opened another vent (hole in box) to give them more air circulation. This morning, bees were bearding outside the hive which is caused by poor ventilation.
• Added more sugar syrup to top hive feeder.

Hive update - 7/11/16

I've been in the hive a few times since my June 18th posting.

• The one super left on the hive had a few frames still to build out with comb but the rest were being filled with nectar and honey.  So I added a second super.
• What I need to do this week is checkerboard the second super and the first, to encourage the bees to build up
• I checked half the frames in the top deep and they mostly were building a lot of white comb at the top of the frames, which I cleared out.
• The box is getting very heavy and there was good looking capped honey in there.
• I didn't get to the bottom deep which is what I need to do next.  I will get down there this week when I checkerboard the supers.
• I'm curious about a queen and if there are more eggs now than on June 18th.  I think that by now there should be a new queen.
• The bees do act like there is a queen. There seems to be enough bees but I have definitely seen a reduction of bees coming in with full side pockets.  In the spring, there is a constant number of bees bringing in pollen in various colors. Right now, I don't see them come in with much at all.  That should change as new flowers begin to emerge including the goldenrod that will start blooming soon.
• I am still feeding the bees and will continue so that they can build up lots of comb that I can hopefully reuse next year and save a lot of time.

I need to begin thinking of winterizing the hive and get some hay into the bee yard for winter insulation...although I hate to think of winter at all during the summer.

I can't wait until I can checkerboard the top deep..but I think that will be a project for next spring when I am hoping I can expand the hive.  And then that new deep will become hive #2...if all goes well.