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GasDoc
Member
Inspection today. It's been about 31-32 days since I installed my bees.
I caught a glimpse of a bee that was obviously the queen. By the time I set the frame on the mount that I was taking pictures with, I had lost her.
But she's in this frame somewhere.
I've got two candidates. One from this picture and one from a subsequent shot of the same frame. I've centered the bee in question in each of the closeups.
Is this her?
OK. I think this one is definitely a queen. Upside down, head down inspecting a cell.
I caught a glimpse of a bee that was obviously the queen. By the time I set the frame on the mount that I was taking pictures with, I had lost her.
But she's in this frame somewhere.
I've got two candidates. One from this picture and one from a subsequent shot of the same frame. I've centered the bee in question in each of the closeups.
Is this her?
OK. I think this one is definitely a queen. Upside down, head down inspecting a cell.
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5 more colonies to pick up and install on Sunday. Brings our hive count up to 8 across two bee yards 45 miles apart. Going to take the Tesla to pick them up - I think we can probably fit 2-3 in the frunk but the remainder have to ride in the back.
Al Sherman
It's about THIS car.
bonnie
I play a nice person on twitter.
Just for fun - took some photos of beehives in the Longji area of China last week. I couldn't open a hive, but you can see a piece of an old round comb lying on the ground near one - that seems to be the same size/shape as honey that was for sale on the street. I wish I had more information but the woman selling honey wasn't a beekeeper and the beekeeper with the hives spoke a different dialect than my guide and translation was difficult.
Smart, Bonnie. I spent the day in a hospital moving about 40 hives when I was young. Keep it current, though!
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If you want to reduce swarms to keep neighbors happy or whatever, give them extra room (supers) and clean off the queen cells formed on the frames. Requires you go through the whole hive every 3 weeks or so.
In addition to this, when they begin to build queen cells, you can reduce their desire to build more by opening the brood nest - place an empty frame between frames of the brood nest so they sense they have work to do. Destroy the queen cells, of course, but then they should stay busy for the next couple of weeks.
Don't underestimate their ability to pack in the honey during the honey flow - sometimes a super per week or two if all the days stay dry and at a respectable temperature.
I have a pretty good idea(have read lots of info) about how to manipulate and control the bees. We were just letting the bees be free to do what they wanted last year. I added a short hex super on our first hive and the new colony we have seems to be ready for another super too. I built a couple of Les Crowder boxes and plan on using one as a Honey super on top of the Langstroth box with our young colony.
...and I read Todd's book a second time, out loud, to my wife on our road trip to Las Vegas (~11hr each way from SF area)
still awesome. wife loved it too :biggrin:
GasDoc
Member
About eight weeks now with my first hive.
Did an inspection today. The bees are still keeping to frames 1-6 if the bottom super and have made one frame of honey in the upper super. There are sheets of SOLID brood but they don't seen to want to expand to frames 7-10.
I moved one frame between two frames of brood hoping this will encourage them to build up.
They also connected two frames together with honeycomb. Perhaps I spaced those two too far apart. This comb broke during my inspection so I took some of it to sample. Yummy!! Returned the comb to their doorstep in the hopes that they'll recycle.
Did an inspection today. The bees are still keeping to frames 1-6 if the bottom super and have made one frame of honey in the upper super. There are sheets of SOLID brood but they don't seen to want to expand to frames 7-10.
I moved one frame between two frames of brood hoping this will encourage them to build up.
They also connected two frames together with honeycomb. Perhaps I spaced those two too far apart. This comb broke during my inspection so I took some of it to sample. Yummy!! Returned the comb to their doorstep in the hopes that they'll recycle.
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I wouldn't recommend this unless they're exhibiting swarm preparation behavior. The bees will control the brood nest size; when you do this, I've found the bees to be stressed more. It really won't change much, other than get them to draw more wax out, as the outer frames will hatch and then be cleaned up and used later for honey storage. If they don't have enough wax built out, you may need to feed them - making water available to them in a really light syrup (2 water to 1 sugar, or 4 lbs. granulated per gallon) will cause them to build wax and expand the colony.
The bay area generally has much milder winters, so you probably don't have to be worried as much about survival during winter compared to me. Around September (after our honey harvest) I begin surveying for winter stores, if they haven't stored enough for the colony (typically 50 lbs. honey or ~80-90 lbs. total hive weight where I live) I feed them a very heavy syrup that they'll store almost directly (2 sugar to 1 water, about 16 lbs. sugar to 1 gallon, requires heating to create supersaturated solution). In my 8-frame hives I typically want 2 deep brood boxes nearly full. For 10 frame, you can have outer frames without anything. During the winter, the colony cluster typically moves only one direction - up. Outer frames generally are not used for food unless the temperatures are above 55-60 degrees during the day, when the bees go to take cleansing flights and feed themselves from other areas of the hive. Otherwise, they stay in a tight cluster.
It's not uncommon to find a colony starved to death during winter with honey stored just inches - 1-2 frames away.
They will happily clean the honey from the comb, and cleaning off the burr comb from the various extra places they put it is a pretty common task. They can also use the wax, too. Bees can take wax and move it where they need it as well.
Al Sherman
It's about THIS car.
I agree with Flasher. When it comes to the bees, I'm a minimalist. The bees know what to do. I'm not a big fan of manipulating frames in general. But, definitely not in a new hive. I've gotten 30-60 lbs of honey from a new hive but this is the exception. Your goal the first season should be getting to the Winter with a large enough population and enough honey stores to make it through the first Winter. Worry about honey the second year. Your hive sounds normal for 8 weeks. Brood production is the key. Feeding is ok if the flow is weak. I know it's hard but I'd also quit messing inside the hive so much. At this point you can find out most of what you need to know by just looking down through the frames maybe once a week at most.
Bottom line: Forget about honey harvest this year. Let the bees do what they do. The flow may get weaker in the Summer months but around here there is usually a good flow in September and October that our bees use to make honey that doesn't taste so great (lots of Ragweed) but gets them through the Winter.
If they're bringing in pollen and the queen is laying they're doing all they can right now.
GasDoc
Member
I transferred my hive from cinder blocks to this home made stand yesterday.
I got the scrap lumber for free and used 5/8" allthread for the legs.
Hopefully, this solves my ant problem. I have the legs sitting in cans of engine oil leftover from my ICE. I can adjust the height of the legs individually to level the hive. I understand this is important if I go foundation free in my honey supers.
Everything looked OK during yesterday's inspection. They still haven't done much work in the second brood deep. Someone suggested that I swap positions and put the full brood box on top and the new one on the bottom. Also read about transferring two frames of brood to the new deep.
Thoughts on these strategies, or should I just leave them alone to move up when they're ready?
I got the scrap lumber for free and used 5/8" allthread for the legs.
Hopefully, this solves my ant problem. I have the legs sitting in cans of engine oil leftover from my ICE. I can adjust the height of the legs individually to level the hive. I understand this is important if I go foundation free in my honey supers.
Everything looked OK during yesterday's inspection. They still haven't done much work in the second brood deep. Someone suggested that I swap positions and put the full brood box on top and the new one on the bottom. Also read about transferring two frames of brood to the new deep.
Thoughts on these strategies, or should I just leave them alone to move up when they're ready?
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hockeythug
Active Member
It looks like my city allows it and the University of Minnesota has a good bee program. Looks like they have classes in the beginning of the year so I might start next year.
http://beelab.umn.edu/index.htm
http://beelab.umn.edu/index.htm
I reference their material a lot! Very awesome that you have access to them locally.
nwdiver
Well-Known Member
Just knocked down a yellow jacket hive; In the spirit of saving our bees I didn't use an ounce of insecticide. I waited 'till ~10pm (all the wasps were snug in the nest) then dropped the whole nest into a 1 gallon plastic tote and placed it in the freezer. Didn't get stung once! but boy were they PISSED!!
Speaking of Wasps... have you guys heard of the giant asian hornet? Sure glad we don't have 'em here. In China they actually use the military! That's when you know you have a wasp problem... when you have to call out the national guard!!
*WARNING: GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF INSECT VIOLENCE... the bees lose BADLY :crying:*
Speaking of Wasps... have you guys heard of the giant asian hornet? Sure glad we don't have 'em here. In China they actually use the military! That's when you know you have a wasp problem... when you have to call out the national guard!!
*WARNING: GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF INSECT VIOLENCE... the bees lose BADLY :crying:*
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Al Sherman
It's about THIS car.
Speaking of Hornets. That looks like a Hornet nest. Our Yellow Jackets here nest in the ground.
nwdiver
Well-Known Member
Al Sherman
It's about THIS car.
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