Cover on winter wrap

We wondered, when we put the winter wraps over the hives, whether the covers, which rest a bit precariously on top of the wraps, were sufficiently secure for winter weather? They fit over side to side, but not front and back. We put several bricks on the top of each top, hoping the extra weight would keep the covers in place. But... sure enough...the yellow hive's cover slipped forward an inch. This week, I will figure out how to keep the covers securely in place, perhaps with braces; tapes and ratchets around the hives would do the trick, too.

For the record

Our bees are flying at mid-day on sunny days when the thermometer is 55F and above, and taking fall-formula syrup from their pan in front of the hives.

Empty dish

Checked on the bees in late afternoon, and found their dish empty of syrup. So... will top it up, in the morning. Either someone else is lapping it up, or they are flying during the warmest part of the day when the sun is full on their hives.

More 1:1 syrup!

Yesterday afternoon, the bees consumed all but a cup or so of their 1:1 (by weight) syrup from the last batch, and yesterday evening made up a fresh batch from 2 kg of granulated cane sugar and 2 liters of water (which very handily 2/3rds fills a 4-liter water bottle). Today, the temperature dropped from 60F to 50F and they stayed inside; spurned the syrup. Yesterday, they were no longer flying over the pan for pollen, but rather were clustered on the cedar branches on the surface of the pan; perhaps the goldenrod and aster pollen opportunity has passed? Hard to tell, now their entrances are reduced, if they're evaporating. I can freeze the syrup made yesterday evening, if it doesn't warm up again this year.

1:1 cane sugar syrup

At last! On this warm (60F by my old outdoor/indoor thermometer) and sunny November day the bees are taking their 1:1 (fall formula) cane sugar syrup poured over cedar branch-ends in an enameled cast-iron flat baking dish set on a chair right in front of their hives! If that's how they like it, that's how it will be offered from this time forward. Winter bees are darker than their summer predecessors. And, our winter bees have been flying midday in all except the rainiest weather, gathering pollen, my guess is from spent goldenrod and asters.

Challenged by the White House!

From the South Lawn, a Sweet Smell of Honey - The New York Times

Source: www.nytimes.com

For the first time in history, honey has been made on White House grounds. It’s a bumper crop.

Cozy for winter

The top photo shows the hives prepped for winter per Paul Kelly's instructions posted here on 29 October. The middle photo shows the reduced entrance in process of discovery; and the bottom photo shows the new top entrance, ditto. That top entrance is designed to allow moisture generated inside the hive to escape so the hive stays warmer, and/but at the moment the bees seem enthusiastic about this as an entrance/exit. Perhaps they're just assessing how much trouble this will be to guard.

Today, the YBeek was felled by an alien bug (i.e. not a honey bee), along with his mum. Get well soon!

So...the YBeek's dad and I winterized the hives.

RE weight of the hives, we found the red hive "heavy" in both boxes although lighter in the bottom box; the yellow hive judged 3/4 of that weight.

The front feeder rigged in the casserole pan with 1:1 sugar syrup with a bit of honey dribbled on top was enjoyed during the past couple of days; the inside feeders were almost completely disregarded for the past month. Rain during the night diluted the front feeder's contents, and I will soon go down to fix that.

RE beek clothing: The more successful (this time) rig for the person not wearing the bee suit was pants covered by overalls tucked into rubber boots, a long sleeved cotton shirt tucked in, and an Eddie Bauer windbreaker with the wrists clamped tight, the bottom string as tight as possible, zipped up, the hood up and closed tight as possible, and this was completely successful preventing entry to the lower 4/5ths. The bee hats worn over the hood were unsuccessful. The bee hood worn under the windbreaker on the third try was the most successful. I will soon buy another adult (supersize) bee suit.

NB for 2010: In 2009, those inside feeders have proven themselves useless, particularly with a fall formula sugar syrup, which crystalizes over the holes through which the bees are supposed to feed. Poor bees!

Chat with Paul Kelly

Conclusions after chat with Paul Kelly today re prepping bee hives for winter:

1. lift off both brood boxes from a hive;

2. remove screen bottom board, and clean bottom board;

3. replace bottom brood box, making an assessment as a matter of interest of its weight; if it is entirely empty, no brood, no bees, no honey, this can be removed, but his advice is just to put it back in that instance;

4. with syringe, dribble evenly between the frames 25 ml of 8.75 grams of oxalic acid crystals mixed with 250 ml of 1:1 by weight water and granulated syrup (I explained that our 1:1 crystalized immediately and I diluted it a bit so it wouldn't but he didn't seem to think this mattered much);

5. place the second box on top of the first, having very approximately estimated its weight, i.e. "heavy" or "light" or "in between" and

6. dribble as in (4) above;

7. place above that the inner cover, from which has been cut a 3" wide slot from the rim, and this 3" slot is placed directly over the top edge of the top super at the front (in the summer, flip this and place the slot uppermost at the back);

8. close off the oval opening in the middle of the inner cover (we have bee-escapes and can seal these);

9. place above this a piece of insulation board, 1", cut to fit;

10. place the hive lining over the hive, so that the bottom rests on the hive base, and

11. place the front entrance so that the smallest hole is useable by the bees, this should allow ready egress and entrance if all goes well with the liner;

11. place the hive top above the insulation board and

12. put the cover on top and place several bricks on the cover.

Repeat for the other hive.

He said that if our bees aren't eating the sugar syrup in their top feeders, there's something wrong with the feeders, OR the hives are so full there's no place to put the feed. I know that the red hive is not THAT full because those bees were so keen to clean up the partially-capped frames. I will rig a front of the hive pan feeder.

Candle

Melted down the wax on the honey-pail strainers from yesterday's project, divided this in half (split 50-50 with the YBeek et al), combined my half of the 2009 wax with Patrick's many (20? 30?) years worth of beeswax candle leftovers, melted this in the old beeswax double boiler, and, using the heaviest candle wick Michael's carries, cast a 3"-diameter x 3.5" high candle. (Last fall I cast several candles in this mould using Patrick's wax collection, but the wicks turned out to be too thin to burn correctly; today made one trial candle with the heavy wick, and will very soon ship this to Logan Ave.; hope have got it right this time!)

Straining honey from partly-filled honey super frames

P.P.S.: 8:09 p.m.: Another nine pints strained; the YBeek and I will use the odd pint for the baklava (see P.S., below). Commenced to wash up. Honey gets everywhere!

P.S.: 6:15 p.m.: Fetched the YBeek from school; he helped strain and bottle 12 pints, plus a cloudy 2/3rds of a pint pressed from the wax which we will use to make baklava tomorrow.. More will strain through during the evening. The bees have completely cleaned their first nine frames; inverted the Roughneck box over the frames on the cart in case it rains tonight. If it's warm and clear, I will give them another nine frames tomorrow.

Noon: Today it is finally warm enough and dry enough to scrape the capped comb from the partly filled honey-super frames, and to put these frames in front of the hives for the bees to clean.

We have 18 of these frames; some capped one side only, some partly capped one side; some with comb partly raised and otherwise empty; when we took them off, we put them into four RubberMaid Roughneck boxes. Then we installed varroa mite strips in the hives, and began to feed with fall formula sugar syrup. The frames have been stored in the barn, waiting for the rain to stop and the weather to warm a bit.

Today, I scraped off capped comb with a big spoon and a spatula, and am straining the honey from the broken cappings through the two honey-strainers and into the honey bucket with the honey gate.

The bees, who have been somewhat casually flying now the goldenrod and asters are coming to a close, a few seconds after I began to unload the first box-load of processed frames onto their cart which I had set in front of the hives, came out to hang in a curtain on the fronts, my guess is, getting organized to take advantage of the bonanza.

Thank you, Robyn!

Robyn sent along this e-mail--thanks, Robyn--

You may have seen this already, but I thought I'd pass it along anyway:http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091002103210.htm

Bees Fight Back Against Colony Collapse Disorder: Some Honey Bees Toss Out Varroa Mites

Source: www.sciencedaily.com

ScienceDaily (Oct. 5, 2009) Honey bees are now fighting back aggressively against Varroa mites, thanks to Agricultural Research Service (ARS) efforts to develop bees with a genetic trait that allows them to more easily find the mites and toss them out of the broodnest.

Rainbow pot of gold!

The YBeek aka Junior Beekeeper phoned after the weather cleared late in the afternoon to say he was admiring a rainbow which ended right above the bee hives. Well, of course there's a pot of gold at the foot of the rainbow: clever rainbow!

N.B.'s

Three N.B.'s:

1. Made up fall-formula sugar syrup, two parts sugar and one part water measured by weight (turns out to be 2 kg sugar/4 cups water), can't be brought to the boil because this renders it indigestible for the bees. Makes crystals so easily that it makes a thick rim on the pot, and on top of the surface as it cools in a plastic water bottle; must be strained as it's poured into the feeding jars. What a mess! Next time, make it up with a bit more water, or take it to the barn fully equipped with funnels, wet cloths, etc.

2. We put the burr comb which the yellow hive had made between two frames of their bottom brood box (and which was lifted out with the top brood box when we installed strips) onto the inner cover for the bees to clean. A mistake. When I lifted off the top cover to place the feeder jar on the surface of the inner cover, discovered a crowd of bees tending the burr/brood comb there, and very defensive. Must light the smoker, get suited up and remove this, either crush it and put it in front of the hive, or toss it out. Or, could put the queen excluder below the outer cover. Lesson: don't put brood comb above the inner cover without a queen excluder in place. Put in front of the hive what you want cleaned.

3. We extracted 20 liters of honey from the yellow hive (more to come). Honey is measured by the pound, and using equivalency tables on Google, we extracted 30 kilograms of honey. See NYT 20 September '09 (AP), "Paris Rooftops Abuzz With Beekeeping": "'In Paris, each beehive produces a minimum of 50 to 60 kilograms ... of honey per harvest...' said Henri Clement, president of the National Union of French Beekeepers. 'But in the countryside, one beehive only gives you 10 to 20 kilograms ... of honey...'" So, our yellow hive is doing better than the average of those in the French countryside, and worse than those in Paris!

Another factor: TLC. Betcha city bees are more carefully monitored.

RE monitoring: We've been monitoring our varroa-levels every few weeks with Crisco-slathered file folders, and a wax-moth trap hung out, and walk by the hives several times a day. There's no way, if we had 100 hives, that we could give this much attention. Note: We might do better next year, if we use drone-comb for varroa control; each drone-comb frame is said to equal one varroa treatment, and we gave each hive one drone-comb frame last April and removed a month later; I wonder if we could keep levels lower if we replaced more frequently, and if so, how frequently. Would we place new drone foundation weekly, and remove that given 28 days before? We could keep four frames rotating from April until November, because we have two brood boxes on each hive; impossible if we kept one brood box on each hive, as is customary now.

First prize!

Our yellow hive's honey won first prize at the fair!

159th Ancaster Fair (Hamilton-Wentworth Regional Fair)

Yesterday (Wednesday) delivered (between 2 p.m. and 9 p.m.) a pint of our honey to exhibit in the Ancaster Agricultural Society's Homecraft Section Class #51 (Home Canning), Section 58 (Honey -- not sealed), exhibitor #030. Today (Thursday), exhibits are judged; tomorrow (Friday) at 9 a.m. the fair opens to the public and we'll have a chance to rush in and see how we did! Sunday between 7 and 8 p.m. exhibits must be removed by claim ticket only (how we will all claim in just one hour, we will discover on Sunday evening!). That we reclaim "by claim ticket only" is a bit of a relief, since delivery--at 2:30 p.m.--was so casual that it occurred to me to go along just before 9 p.m. to check our jar was still there!

I had bought two exhibition tickets, thinking that the YBKeep (#030) would present a pint from the yellow hive; I'd present a pint from the red hive (#031). But as things turned out, we didn't take the honey super from the red hive until last Sunday, and frames in various stages of completion are still sitting in a RubberMaid box, so the YBKeep is representing us solo with the pint from the yellow hive. Prizes: 1st -- $4.25; 2nd -- $3.75; 3rd -- $3.25; 4th -- $2.53; 5th -- $2.25--issued as cheques, plus, my recollection is, each placement picks up a corresponding ribbon. Entry forms received by August 28th (ours were) will be entered in a draw (when?) for three $25. prizes. Other perquisites: two admission tickets to the fair, two exhibitor claim tickets. The YBKeep and his family are involved with the fair up to their eyeballs--milk/dairy, and the EYBKeep is exhibiting a calf, and Old MacDonald's Farm--fortunately, Friday is a school P.D. day!

Back to normal...

Yesterday, the YBKeep and I watched the beehives for a few minutes; bees seem back to normal, flying hard, even on a drizzly day.

Upset bees

As the YBKeep and I agreed yesterday, this morning went down to place Crisco-slathered file-folders under the screen hive bases, to see (as a matter of interest) how many varroa mites are fumigated by the medicated strips, and was warned off. Our poor bees are still upset over what happened yesterday: they have multiplied their guard-bee numbers, enlarged their guarded area by about 20 feet diameter (and including behind the hive, where just two days ago they were quite content to allow human traffic). It's cloudy and close today, moody weather for bees in the best of circumstances, but it's warm: they don't need the entrance reducers installed just now anyhow. They're working hard on cleaning up the queen-excluders placed beside the hives, and doubtless busy repairing damage done inside, too.

EYBKeep's photos

The EYBKeep (Even Younger Beekeeper) took these photos of today's work--

Medicated for varroa mite

Thank you to the YBKeep, his younger brother (EYBKeep--Even Younger Bee Keeper?), and his mum and dad for coming along this morning to remove the three remaining honey supers, and medicate the four (two each hive) brood supers with medicated strips to get rid of the varroa mites.

These strips must stay in the hives for 42 days; on Saturday, 31 October (easy to remember!), we remove them. We will then also remove the screen bottom board from each hive. (These screen bottom boards are new to beekeeping since my last incarnation: their function is to prevent fallen varroa mites from crawling back into the brood boxes.)

We left empty honey supers above the pair of brood boxes on each hive, and I will immediately make fall-formula sugar syrup and begin to feed, and continue until the bees are wrapped for winter.

After the bottom boards are removed (and in the course of removing these, we can feel the weight of the bottom brood boxes--we want HEAVY going into winter!), we will wrap the hives for winter, with ventilation top and bottom so vapour can escape, and the bees can exit on warm winter days to poop.

At my leisure this week, I will assess the 27 frames from the three taken-off honey supers. The completely uncapped frames can be put in front of the hives for the bees to clean, before being stored in their supers upstairs in the house.

The mostly uncapped frames can be completely uncapped, and given back to the bees for cleaning and after they're cleaned, stored.

The dilemma is in relation to mostly-capped frames--the capped frames one side and uncapped the other, etc. Some frames, we will cut out the capped honey, and crush and drain, some we can make into chunk honey, and if the wired comb is beyond repair by the bees, we will melt this down for candles, and let them clean the frames, etc.

Notes:

1. RE Re-queening: We discovered that the red hive (the swarmed hive, which made a new queen and is now strong) has a more aggressive temperament than the easy-going yellow hive, so we made a mental note that when we re-queen the yellow hive which contains an August 2007 queen, we will also re-queen the red hive with a queen from the same stock, aiming that both hives have calm temperaments.

2. RE bee-suits: I made a note to buy two additional bee suits. This morning I retired twice (three times?) to get rid of bees up my pants, under my shirt, and inside my bee-veil (even though bee-stings are recommended for arthritis). The yellow hive didn't mind much when we took off honey supers, but invasion of the brood boxes is another matter! The red hive minded everything!

3. RE Rubbermaid Roughneck boxes: It would be handy to have several additional shallow Rubbermaid Roughneck boxes into which to put the honey-filled frames. Off to Canadian Tire!

4. RE moving brood boxes: The yellow hive had created a large slab of burr-comb between two of their frames in the bottom brood box, and this made the top brood box very problematical to remove. This huge chunk containing open comb and a small amount of brood lifted out attached to the bottom of a frame in the top box. (We put this in front of the hive, and eventually placed this for cleaning on top of the inner cover. When I go to feed the bees, I will remove this.)

A couple of lessons here:

first, the nine frames must be spaced evenly in the supers;

second, we must saw the two brood boxes apart: lifting that heavy top brood box is very problematical, and not only because it's so heavy; they glue the two boxes together along the edges of the boxes, and also the frames are joined between the two boxes. Next time we do this, we can take a carpenter's wood saw and pass this between the two boxes before attempting to lift the top box. This will (let's hope!) prevent the bottom box from lifting from the screen base and base, which happened this time in both hives, and had to be realigned. The main problem with this disturbance: it must inevitably endanger the queen. We must hope that we didn't damage our queens today!

Observation: We kept bees from the time Patrick was ten (same age as the JBKeep) approximately until he went away to university, and this was pre-varroa, so beekeeping was simpler, and we had veils, but no bee suits--we just put on sweat shirts and boots and gloves and taped ourselves shut with duct tape. My goodness, we must have been hardy! But, we never had to go into the brood boxes, the most we ever did was attempt to lift, to make sure these were heavy; I do remember re-queening, but not that this was an issue. Well, I certainly am a sissy now: it's a bee suit for me going forward!

The EYBKeep took 118 photos! Because this note is so long, I will put the photos in another blog-entry.

Thank you!

Thank you, YBKeep's mum and aunt, who arrived yesterday evening to count varroa trapped in Crisco on the two file folders. The count was 70+ for the red (swarmed) hive, and 750+ for the yellow hive.

The relatively low number in the red hive is as expected: first, because the swarm early in July took the main varroa burden with it, and, second, because of the swarm and the time-gap in laying caused by re-queening, this hive contains fewer bees; incidentally, the yellow hive's varroa count at this time of year is approximately expected--not considered astronomical.

Thanks also for taking the extracted honey frames and supers upstairs in the house for winter storage!

Next weekend, the three honey supers on the hives come off, and the brood boxes treated for varroa.

Crisco-covered file folders

Crisco-slathered file folder put on a cookie sheet and shoved under the screen-bottom board of each hive this morning. Remove tomorrow (24 hours later), and must attempt to catch up with the YBKeep to count the varroa mites and estimate the burden. If this remains as low as we've experienced this summer, we can leave the honey supers on for another week for capping; remove Saturday, 19 September or Sunday, 20 September depending on whether the goldenrod bloom is close to finished, take off the honey supers, process the capped honey, treat the hives for varroa mites; next step, when the weather gets cool, lift the brood boxes and remove the screen bottom boards, examine the brood frames for stored honey and pollen; reduce the entrances; finally, before the real cool weather, wrap the hives, which will nevertheless need openings top and bottom so humidity can escape, and the bees can emerge on warm winter days, to relieve themselves.

Question for an expert: what happens to the uncapped honey in the honey supers? Do we freeze this? Or put these out in front of the hives, so the nectar can be finished into honey and can be stored in the brood boxes?

Sugar migration

The aftermath of even the most careful Christmas-cookie creation is stickiness on surfaces we never knew we touched; icing and even granulated sugar seems to migrate spontaneously, perhaps through vapour--steam--humidity. The same's true of processing honey--just now I used the stepladder wiped down on Monday afternoon--and--oooh, a little bit sticky, so... wiped it down again. By contrast, the honey-super frames stacked in the mud-room, having been licked by 60,000 or so bees on Monday and Tuesday, are certified (by this anti-sticky fanatic) sticky-free. The extraction equipment was washed in the shower on Monday afternoon and dried in the sun on Tuesday, is now in the barn; today perhaps I will put it out in front of the hives to be checked over. And, after that, induce the 60,000 bees into the kitchen?

Scrupulously clean!

Here are the 18 frames extracted on Monday, now scrupulously cleaned by the bees and taken into the house yesterday evening after the bees retired into their hives. (Last night, great numbers protected the remaining honey in the frames.) At first glance, it looks tidier to remove the foundations and melt these down for candles--start fresh with new foundation next year. But a closer look reveals substantial work and a beautiful organization. The frames are so clean that we can store them in an upstairs closet in their supers.

First honey harvest!

Here we are, early in the morning, removing the inner cover of the yellow hive. Because four supers is too high for the YBKeep these days (that will surely change in time!) Patrick is smoking the bees down, the YBKeep having smoked the front entrance.

Taking a look at the last-given super, which was uncapped in the outer frames.

Smoking the bees down from a finished super.

Now we're in the kitchen, and I'm raking the comb cappings; the YBKeep is poised to crank the extractor.

Draining honey through the extractor's honey gate into the first sieve; this fits into a second, finer sieve, which drains into the honey pail from which the honey is drained into jars by means of its own honey gate.

Product!

From left to right: Senior BKeep, Very Young BKeep, YBKeep, and YBKeep's Cousin.

We took 18 capped frames from the top three supers of the yellow hive today. We rearranged the outer frames of all three supers so their top super contains the emptiest frames at the center. We noted that they haven't raised comb in the outermost frames of the most recently given super. We looked into the red hive's single super above the queen excluder, and they haven't moved beyond the center three frames, so we left them to work along for the next couple of weeks.

We extracted 20 liters of (very delicious!) honey from the 18 capped frames. We gave two liters to our next door neighbours whom we are sure have seen a bee or two more than usual in their clover during the summer, and set aside a pint for the YBKeep to exhibit at the Ancaster Fair coming up, and this is rather intimate since a very good friend judges Canning, however, his name on the label will be covered and therefore secret. We split the rest, 50-50. Of my share, Patrick took 5 liters to Toronto. We will have another honey harvest in a couple of weeks. We must begin to calculate when, in relation to the goldenrod and the asters blooming, we can take the honey supers off and medicate.

The YBKeep and I were very grateful for all the help we had! The YBKeep's Mum, YBKeep's Aunt, YBKeep's Cousin, plus Patrick and the Very Junior BKeep. Our system was pretty good and since we cleaned up any drips right away, the kitchen is surprisingly unsticky! The washer and drier and dishwasher and tons of towels and dishtowels and newspaper all got workouts. And, thank heaven for RubberMaid Roughneck boxes! As I write, the bees are busily cleaning the extracted frames, which are sitting in front of the hives stacked in a pair of those Roughnecks, and when it gets dark, I must go down and cover them, and tomorrow hope to move the cleaned frames into the freezer for the winter.

Here we are--and these wonderful pictures were taken with two cameras neither of which belonged to the photographer--thanks and congratulations to the shutterbug!

Update

The file folders placed under the hives and removed 24 hours later showed low varroa (have saved the folders on their cookie sheets for the YBeek's sharp eyes; the red hive now has an even pattern of debris fall across the frames, and 50 or so bees out fanning yesterday; the yellow hive had a very crowded entrance. Goldenrod is now in bloom.

Sure enough, here's http://www.seattlepi.com/local/409422_HONEY19.html

re importation of Chinese honey. If pets died from food manufactured in North America but adulterated by an ingredient from China, and more recently Chinese babies died from adulterated milk, honey is a no-brainer to corrupt. Never buy supermarket honey!

Update

Planned to drive to Cambridge to Better Bees today, to pick up a food-grade bucket (over which to place the fine strainer and into which to drain honey from the extractor and onto which to install the honey-gate), and varroa zapper to place in the hives after the honey-supers are removed on the Labour Day weekend, but an angel inspired me to check by phone in addition to checking on line, and sure enough they are on holidays until next week.

Removed the Crisco slathered file folder from under the red hive, and discovered debris concentrated in the middle frames, containing some varroa, plus a WAX MOTH wading around in the Crisco. Moth can't get into the hive that way because a screened base-board sits above the Crisco-space, and/but wax moth is the bane of weak hives; only way in is through the (guarded) lower entrance. Madly read up on wax moth. Wax moth would be a death knell for that hive. Noted that freezing kills wax moth larvae, and I suppose we could just freeze the two brood boxes for the requisite number of days, let the yellow hive clean up comb, and start fresh with a nuke (or make a division?) next year. Rigged a wax moth trap from a plastic bottle with a one-inch hole, a banana peel, a cup of water, a cup of sugar, and half a cup of vinegar, and hung it from the lath house gate. They're not supposed to be able to get out, having fallen in and enjoyed the fermented mess, but maybe you get more that way-- if you rig a Japanese beetle trap you get tons more than you'd have if you did nothing.

Removed the Crisco slathered file folder from under the yellow hive, and discovered a few varroa; didn't count them because that file folder is overdue to be removed. There were also seven or so workers wading around in the Crisco, which I knocked off onto the lawn. They must have entered determinedly from the rear; I wonder what they were doing? Zapping varroa? Also, why do they have so few varroa, and so many bees? Is that hive especially good at grooming?

Replaced Crisco slathered file folders under both hives, and must remove these in 24 hours and count to determine varroa levels.

Noted daily recently that both hives are flying hard; red hive has a clot of bees out fanning, which implies they have a laying queen (the hives will hatch their winter bees last week in August and first week in September); yellow hive seems in great shape.

This week, completed an entry in the Ancaster Fair one each for the Young Beek and myself; we must each take along a pint between 2 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Wednesday, 23 September. My thinking was, he might like to exhibit the yellow hive, and I will exhibit the red, but it looks as tho' the red hive will be lucky just to scrape through until spring, so perhaps he will exhibit one pint on behalf of our partnership.

Urban beekeeping

Patrick posted the following link to The New York Times, RE urban beekeeping in England and a variation on the Langstroth hive:

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/10/the-english-encourage-urban-beekeeping/

-- thank you, Patrick!

Foraging area map, and NB

Here's our bees' foraging area (using a rule-of-thumb two miles radius). Thanks to Patrick for the nifty map, which is closest to bees-mode in "Sat"!


View bees in a larger map

And, today I gave each hive a Crisco-slathered file folder, to monitor varroa mite levels in the hives.

"Researchers lure mites away from bees"

I posted to a beekeepers' e-list, and received the following reply:

"Re: Researchers lure mites away from bees

Sat Aug 1, 2009 11:52 pm (PDT)

Emily, Interesting! Here's a bit more............

New Bait Lures Varroa Mite to its Doom / July 1, 2009 / News from the

USDA Agricultural Research Service

right from Uncle Sam.

I'll see what else I can find and post...."

On Jul 31, 2009, at 11:34 PM I wrote:

> A neighbour brought me a clipping from Ontario Farmer, Tuesday, 28

> July 2009, p. C13, top right corner: "Researchers lure mites away

> from bees. The Varroa mite....article in the Agricultural Research

> Service's latest magazine....new...control Varroa...ARS research unit

> in Gainesville, Florida, research leader Peter Teal is testing a bait-

> and-kill approach using sticky boards dosed with natural chemical

> attractants, called 'semiochemicals.' The article says that in

> nature, Varroa mites rely on the semiochemicals to locate and then

> feed on adult bees and their brood....compound will lure the

> parasites away from their intended hosts and onto the stocky boards,

> where they starve. Preliminary tests have been promising...."

> Anybody know more about this?

Chinese honey

Chat on the two beekeepers' lists RE Chinese honey flooding the market. Didn't we learn our lesson from our recent dog-foods crisis? Seems just yesterday that dogs were dying from compromised ingredients imported from China added to kibble. Before medicating honey bees one must remove all the honey supers, and wait five weeks before returning them. Never mind exported adulterated dog food ingredients: if Chinese dairy processors breezily adulterate milk and permanently damage the health of Chinese babies, it seems a no-brainer not to trust Chinese beekeepers.

Check-up

Full team checked on bees yesterday, 31 July.

Red hive, bees are flying, and if there is a new queen recently bred, she has not yet begun to lay in a mid-frame of her top brood box. We checked one frame which had an empty half-circle of brood comb, and lots of pristine honey capped above the brood sphere. We checked the single honey-super, and this contained no bees above the queen-excluder, and they've raised some comb in the mid-frames, and stored little honey, nothing capped.

Yellow hive, crowd of bees evaporating on the landing-lip, top (first given) honey super is capped and full, and could be taken off; other three supers are in as-anticipated stages of completion, with last-given super comb raised and lots of room. We have one additional honey super available, but it doesn't look as though they will need it before the honey supers are taken off at the end of August. The two photos are both from the yellow hive, and both demonstrate, to my chagrin, how not to hold a frame! (I should be holding the frames by the ends: the camera cannot lie!) The left-hand photo shows a frame from the second-given super, which is honey-filled and in process of capping; the right-hand photo shows an outermost frame from the same super, which has raised comb and honey filled but not capped on the outer side.

Shopping list

Shopping list:

Oxytet-25-S or Oxysol-62.5 powdered sugar mix

65% formic acid OR Mite-Away II single application pad (250 ml. per pad) OR Mite-Wipe multiple application pad (35 ml. per pad)

Maybe: Fumagilin-B in sugar syrup

Added 1 August: pollen patties?

and, for sure, winter wrap.

RE 2009 Ontario recommendations for honey bee disease control:

AFB (American Foul Brood) prevention: (a) in fall after the honey comes off; and (b) spring, stopping 4 weeks before first main honey flow, which is what? Dandelions? Fruit trees? If dandelions, then that's beginning of May, and treatment is 3 times at 5-10 intervals in spring and fall, so the minimum time is 3x5=15 or two weeks, so need to begin in mid-April, and medication is Oxytet-25-S or Oxysol-62.5 powdered sugar mix. I am a bit puzzled RE prevention, because if you have AFB you create a pyre of bees and hives and etc., so don't you either have AFB or not? Isn't AFB prevention sorta being a little bit pregnant?

HBTM (Honey Bee Tracheal Mite): (a) fall; and (b) spring, place 150 bees/bee yard in alcohol and send samples to the diagnostic bee labs. Call the labs for sampling directions. If infestation level is 10% or higher, treat. Medication is 65% formic acid OR Mite-Away II single application pad (250 ml. per pad) OR Mite-Wipe multiple application pad (35 ml. per pad), ensure that a total of 3 pads are applied: a fresh pad is placed 3 times, 4 days apart.

Varroa mite: Monitor. Give bees drone foundation in brood box, remove before hatching; we can give the yellow hive a brood frame of drone foundation on Monday. Drones will be evicted in mid-August, we probably just barely have time to do this. NB: I note that freezing for a week will kill the varroa larvae, so we could have frozen the two frames we gave them in April, and given them back to the bees to clean up and re-use; that would save them the trouble of raising comb. Bees that form the winter cluster are hatched in the last week of August/first week of September. Take off the honey before they hatch and treat with 65% formic acid OR Mite-AwayII OR 6 applications of Mite-Wipe pad, 4 days apart OR CheckMite+ and Apistan. In the late fall, at the time of packing the bees, Oxalic acid trickle method.

Nosema: obtain 25 bees from the front entrance, and send to the bee labs for diagnosis. Query: do we need to treat (Fumagilin-B in sugar syrup) no matter what the lab says?

Diagnostic bee labs:

Perrin's Bee Lab, Cameron, Ontario (705) 359-1505

Tanglewood Honey Bee Lab Services, Eganville, Ontario (613) 628-2890.

Took a look; added a super

These days, we need muscles to lift the yellow-hive's capped honey-filled super, which weighs 40 lbs (30 lbs of honey), so the Young Beekeeper's dad came along, and suited up. Here, at about 7:30 a.m. on a cool, fresh, cloudy morning (from left to right): the YB, me, the YB's dad, the YB's cousin (gray sweatshirt), and, foreground, the YB's younger brother.

This hive had fully-raised comb in all frames on the last-given super. So, we gave this hive a new, empty honey-super above the queen-excluder, and put the other three supers back in order. NB: This hive had a varroa mite count (24 hrs) of 30 on the sticky-board, so I will give them a sticky-board next Sunday, so we will get another 24-hour count on Monday morning, our next check-up day. At the end of July, depending on the varroa level, we must make a decision of whether to remove the honey supers and treat for varroa, or let them go through August.

In this photo, the YB's dad is putting the fully-capped honey-super back onto the yellow hive. The supers go back in the order in which they were given: most recent directly above the brood boxes, etc.

Next, we opened the red (swarmed) hive, and they have done almost nothing in their honey super above the queen excluder. (It's advised that new beekeepers keep two hives, in order to

compare, and we certainly have the two extremes to compare!) We pulled out two frames from their top brood box; we saw no eggs in the empty brood cells, there was a bit of honey in the bottom of these. Evidently, the new queen, if we're right she was bred on Sunday, has not yet (Tuesday) begun to lay.

Below, the YB's younger brother sitting on his chair, the rest of us are inside stripping off our bee-garb; see ya next week, bees!

Varroa mite count

This morning, the Young Beekeeper's mum counted varroa mites trapped in Crisco on file folders: the yellow hive's 24-hour count--30; the red hive's count--zero.

Nuptial flight?

Lots of excitement at the red hive this afternoon, drones flying around and around, and a clot of bees on the landing lip. The yellow hive caught the excitement and although flying hard, paused/came out to watch. Let's hope all the excitement was about sending the young queen on a nuptial flight. (She will fly several times, to be bred in the air, and each time by a different drone, because drones destroy their private parts in the mating, and die; this ensures an albeit-narrow range of genetic diversity.) Phoned the Young Beekeeper, left a message on the answering machine, went back out to watch the show. By the time he called back, the red hive's bees were back inside, the yellow hive's bees were flying hard as usual these July days: the show was over. Perhaps on Tuesday when we open the hives, we will see eggs in the red hive's brood frames: let's hope so!

Red hive schedule

Question: what's the soonest after swarming that a hive may be queen-right; what's the soonest--or the latest--we can expect--if all is well-- to see eggs in the cells?

Tentative conclusion: We should see eggs laid by the new queen in the red hive sometime between 18 July and 1 August. (I wonder if we could/should transfer a frame or two of brood from the yellow hive to the red hive, to make up for the gap in production?)

Background information: The red hive swarmed on Canada Day. The queen must have laid the egg for the new queen before leaving. The workers stop feeding her before swarming, so she can slim down and fly. Query: does she continue to lay despite the Weight Watchers? Assuming that she does, the latest the egg for the new queen could be laid is 1 July 2009. "The queen cell is sealed 8 days after the egg is laid [latest, 9 July 2009]. The virgin queen emerges 8 days later [17 July 2009], on the sixteenth day, and may fly next day. [So assuming the latest laying, the earliest she could fly and be bred is 18 July 2009, and hmmm... see Hooper, below, p. 45.] Therefore if a colony has a clipped queen and is not making queen cells at one examination, it will not be able to get a swarm away for 17 days.... In addition, if a colony is making queen cells at one inspection, and these are killed by the beekeeper, then emergency cells will probably be started from worker larvae. If a 4 day-old larva is chosen (and this is probably the oldest they would choose), then this larva, being 7 days old (3 days in the egg and 4 days as a larva), should emerge as a queen after 9 more days (16 days minus 7 days) and can be on the wing on the tenth day after inspection. The fact that the bees will usually select a larva at least 2 days younger means that usually the virgin will not emerge for at least 11 days." (Hooper, p. 111.) "The queen mates on the wing during the first ten to twenty days of her life" (Hooper, p. 45)...."the queen starts egg-laying within a few days [after mating]."

Further: "...where the swarm has been lost, the beekeeper must deal with the colony as soon as possible to prevent other swarms, or casts, from coming out as well. The colony is opened and a good queen cell is found and is left to produce a queen (some beekeepers mark the comb by putting a drawing pin in the top bar above the cell). On no account must the chosen cell be on a comb that is shaken, or damage may result to the queen, who is quite loose in the cell. The comb should be searched thoroughly to ensure that no further queen cells are left on it, and the other combs should be shaken through and any other queen cells destroyed.

"If no hatched cells are found amongst those destroyed the colony is then left for ten to twenty days before being examined again, when the new queen will have emerged and should have mated and started to lay. [We didn't do all that; I just called Tibor Szabo Sr. and he confidently said they'd make a new queen.] It is often three weeks or more before a young queen will come into lay in a large colony. Do not be impatient and think the colony is queenless: it is unlikely to be so. The new queen is just slow in getting started. A more detailed understanding of this situation will be gained by reading the section on queenlessness in Chapter 9." (Hooper, p. 145; follows with interesting information on tearing down queen cells when bees decide not to swarm after all, etc.)

RE queenlessness: "Although it is true to say that brood is usually absent from queenless colonies, the converse is far from the truth. A colony with no brood can have a perfectly good young queen who has not as yet started to lay. In my experience the number of colonies that become queenless by natural means is very, very small. Usually the queenless colony, particularly during the main part of the active season, has been made so by some mistake by the beekeeper. Recognition of queenlessness is far from easy if one is just relying on conclusions drawn during examination of the colony. The main signs are that the colony is more irritable than usual, the bees seem to be less well-organized on the combs, very few brood cells will be polished up ready for the queen to lay in--certainly not a large circular area of such cells. Pollen in the broodnest will be shiny from being covered with honey to prevent it going mouldy whilst it is not being used. Often there will be some cells with little hoods drawn out from the top walls and often these are covering pollen, and in some cases an egg from a laying worker. All these signs are straws in the wind pointing towards queenlessness but none is conclusive." (Hooper, pp. 181-2, followed by a five-days-long sure-fire test using a brood frame from another hive.)

New supers; varroa mite check

Yesterday, bought two shallow supers, and a honey gate (spigot sized to allow honey to flow freely and which can be turned off without drips). This will be installed in a food-grade bucket in which will be placed the honey sieve and into which will drain the extractor. Yesterday, painted the supers with a coat of latex primer and a coat of white exterior latex paint; will give one more paint-coat today. This morning, put together the frames, and have become pretty fast at doing this (assembly line on the kitchen table; electric drill...) Will place drone-foundation in these frames, mainly because that's what's on hand; it's easier to extract, because the cells are larger; we may find to our grief why this is a specialty product even in the very narrow specialty-product beekeeper-supply world. Lovely day for bees yesterday, cool and bright; they were flying well into the early evening; then lots of humming from the yellow hive, busy fanning to evaporate.

RE the varroa mite check using file folders slathered with Crisco and placed for 24 hours on cookie sheets below the screen bottom, the red hive turned up no mites; found what seem to be three on the yellow hive's sheet. The Young Beekeeper will look at these with the strong magnifying glass--all I can see is tiny red shiny ovals. He may be able to see the ferocious mouth and horrid little legs and confirm their identity.

Maintenance

Early this lovely cool summer morning, we checked our hives; did some maintenance:

1. placed a Crisco-slathered file folder on a cookie sheet below each hive to monitor varroa mites;

2. opened the yellow hive, and found that the comb in the first-given (i.e. the top super of three) honey super is partly capped (see fourth photo, below);

3. opened the red hive, and it seemed at first that they had done nothing in their honey super, so we decided to take this off and feed them, but in the course of emptying the super of frames, we found that comb has been partly raised (see the second photo); we pulled the east-most comb of their top brood super, and found this full of capped honey; we pulled a centre comb of this brood super, and found brood (see third photo below); so we put the hive back

together exactly as we had found it. This third photo is interesting because it shows the brood-globe which bees create within a Langstroth hive--honey (food) on the outside, brood within the "globe".

The first photo, above, shows the Young Beekeeper, having emptied the contents of his smoker into the metal garbage can placed for that purpose, airing his smoker, which he will then place on top of the metal garbage can's lid.

We will check our bees again, in a week. Tomorrow, I will drive to Cambridge and pick up two additional shallow (honey) supers and frames to match.

Bee-escape removed!

This morning, lifted the yellow hive's cover, and discovered the top honey-filled super still filled with bees. Lots of indignant humming, which soon subsided. (These are the best-tempered bees!) Evidently they'd either spurned the bee-escape, or they couldn't escape downwards by that route. I took off the cover, and lifted a couple of frames, and discovered the comb yet uncapped, so lifted off the top super, removed the bee-escape from the inner cover, removed the inner cover, put the full super back onto the hive, the inner cover on top, and on top of that, the cover and a brick. Evidently this super is not ready for extraction. Query: did they remove the capping during the night? Conclusions: (1) should have looked at a couple of centre frames when had the hive open yesterday; (2) use the bee-brush to remove bees from frames: poor bees, trapped all night above that dad-gasted bee escape!

Bee-escape installed!

This afternoon, noted that the yellow hive had a traffic jam at the entrance, so I removed all the honey supers, put an empty honey super (fourth of four!) above the queen excluder, put the last-given (half-full) honey super above that, and above that the inner cover with a bee-escape installed, and the first-given honey super (which now weighs well more than Thomas), above that, and the cover on the top of everything, with a brick on top. Here's a photo of our set-up as of mid-afternoon today. We will open the red (swarmed) hive on Sunday or Monday and see how they're doing; we will extract in order to free up the nine full frames (above the bee-escape) for more honey-making. Just for the record, they have raised comb and substantially filled a honey super in a week. Conclusion: we need two additional honey supers.

Perfect summer's day

Today was truly the Glorious Fourth, a perfect summer's day, and the bees from both hives were flying fast in their bee-lines this afternoon; one would never know from the outside that the "red" hive had recently swarmed. When they're flying, they're quite noisy: BZZZZZZZZZZ... I have clover in bloom in the lawn; perhaps they're working clover in our several square kilometers?

Chat with Dr. Tibor Szabo

This morning I phoned Dr. Tibor Szabo, from whom we bought our bees, and asked him whether it would be better to re-queen our "red" swarmed hive, or to let the bees raise their own queen? He said:

1. better to let the bees raise their own queen now; great difficulty finding the home-raised queen(s) at this time;

2. one advantage of a swarm is, all the mites go away with the bees, so the mite burden is greatly reduced;

3. bees do not like to "go up" and they probably got so crowded that they "just had to swarm"; that the weaker hive swarmed has to do with temperament by contrast to the "yellow" hive which went up easily and is now busily working on its second honey super;

4. honey production is good for us, but not "good for the bees"; it's better for the bees to swarm;

5. the swarmed hive will lose ten days in brood production;

6. and his first remark will come last here: "but we have had such poor weather!" That's interesting: I have been enjoying this quasi-English spring/summer weather! So have the peonies, and--except for the heavy rain (a Chinese emperor required that each blooming peony have a personal servant to stand over it with an umbrella in the instance of rain)--they've had long bloom times.

In retrospect, since the decision to swarm is made three weeks before the swarm is accomplished, perhaps they should have received their second brood supers earlier? OTOH, the "red" hive was weaker, and therefore less crowded, and second-year queens are "almost programmed to swarm" so perhaps the swarm was inevitable? Inevitable or not, if I could turn back the clock, would give the second brood super three weeks earlier and right away zoom the time-clock forward to assess the result.

Second honey super on the "yellow" hive

Today, the Young Beekeeper and I and three young aides opened up the hives, and sure enough, it's evident that the "red" hive swarmed, which is to say, is no longer packed with bees. This hive has just begun to raise comb in their honey super. The "yellow" hive, by contrast, is full of bees, and they have raised comb, filled and capped all the way to the outer frames in their first honey super. We gave that hive a second honey super, which we placed directly above the second brood super, and we placed the first-given honey super on top of the second honey super. If they can fill a honey super that fast, we must look again in ten days, and if that's full, we can give them a third honey super, and after that, we will be all out of supers, and must extract before we can proceed.

Swarm

Alas, we had a swarm this morning just after 9 a.m. I phoned the Junior Beekeeper, but he was marching in the Lynden Canada Day parade this morning, and nobody was home. And, I cobbled together a hive from two shallow honey supers and a couple of tarpaulins, etc. and placed it on the bee cart and trundled this under the ball of bees, but this was too high in a spruce tree to knock down into the hive, and on too small a branch to support a ladder, and too awkward a place to saw down the branch with the extension saw. So I placed some lovely comb and honey sprinkled on a plate at the hive-front to create scent, and when I came back at noon, they were just preparing to leave for wherever their scout had determined they'd go. Good bye, bees! Farewell! It's late for a swarm, and first year bees are usually too busy raising comb and so on, to swarm, but...

Lack of varroa mites

The Young Beekeeper couldn't find any varroa mites stuck to our Crisco-slathered file folders , either.    It's unlikely we don't have ANY, though.   Paul Kelly, of the Honey Bee Research Centre, Department of Environmental Biology, University of Guelph, who taught a bee-keeping seminar which I took in April, kindly replied to an  e-mail and an article which I sent along from The New York Times RE a beekeepers'-ball held in New York City (<http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/having-a-ball-at-the-beekeepers-ball/?scp=2&sq=honey%20bees%20&st=cse>):   

Hi Emily:

 Thanks for forwarding the article. Bees sure are getting lots of attention these days. Your varroa population is likely low but certainly won't be non existent. Great to hear you are monitoring. You'll see more mites later in the season.

  Best Regards,   Paul

Crisco-covered file folders

I removed the varroa mite traps made of file folders slathered with Crisco, and I got all set to count varroa mites and divide by three (days) etc., and/but couldn't find any varroa mites.  Got out a magnifying glass:   the specks looked like bits of wax or pollen.   Got out a stronger magnifying glass(the lens which screws onto my bird-watching monocular and turns it into a microscope).   Lifted specks one by one with tweezers and placed them under the lens, and, sure enough, these were little moon-rocks--wax or pollen.    No horrid little legs, or smooth red bodies, etc.  Tomorrow the Junior Beekeeper arrives straight from the dentist to be whisked off to the ice cream emporium and thence to the public library, and before we set forth I will ask him to look through the lenses with his sharp young eyes.   

More maintenance

Above:   capped drone cells.  The cells which have not been capped, mostly contain honey.    The two frames of drone-comb, one taken from each hive, went home with the Junior Beekeeper and the Junior Beekeeper's Cousin to open, examine, salvage wax, and so on.   Below, burr comb with honey scraped from the inner covers:   yum!

Above:   the Young Beekeeper slathers a layer of Crisco on a file-folder.   This will be put just below the wire hive base, on the wooden hive base, to leave for several days, and remove, and we'll count the number of varroa mites which have fallen there, and got stuck in the Crisco, and this will give us a means of judging our varroa mite burden.   We bought our bees from a great bee-keeper, and they've been beautifully bred and beautifully cared for, so we may not have many varroa mites.   Bees are now bred for grooming behaviour, by which they remove mites from one another.    Below:  we're placing the Crisco-slathered file-folder.  

Thank you, Mary Lynne, for taking our photos, all 60,003 of us.  

Maintenance/upgrade

Maintenance/upgrade

On Sunday, 21 June 2009 we went into our hives to perform maintenance and upgrade.    

We knew this was necessary for two reasons:  a.  bee behaviour--the bees were flying as if on a 400-series highway, and the guard bees were getting cranky;   b. by the calendar, it was time to remove the frames of drone-comb.  

1.   When we opened the hives, we were very pleased that the hives seem equally-strong now:  both have raised comb in all nine frames of their top (second) brood super, and it's mostly capped.   We didn't go into the bottom brood super of either hive.   

2.  We removed the frame of drone-foundation we'd given each hive for varroa mite control (varroa mites lay in the bees' drone comb, so if you give the bees handy drone-foundation, the bees will raise drone-comb, the varroa will lay there, and this frame can be removed BEFORE the varroa hatch and this thwarts the varroa--and we don't need the drones anyhow).   Lesson learned:   mark the drone-comb frame!   Fortunately we remembered where it was and successfully removed this first try both times.  

Above:   Removing a drone-comb frame.

Below:   The Young Beekeeper's Cousin (a big help to have an extra pair of hands).

Above:   the time of day and the weather were both perfect for this job--early, cool, and a sparkling June day with low humidity, though we had rain yesterday.   We've removed the frame of drone-comb from the near hive (it's leaning against the hive).   We've given the bees a replacement frame with regular worker-foundation, and we put the queen excluder on top.   Next, on top of the queen excluder, we will place a shallow super with ten frames of wired worker-foundation in which to raise comb and make honey for us.   We've already given the far hive its queen-excluder above the second brood-box, and on top of that, a shallow super containing ten frames of wired drone-foundation on which to raise comb, and in which to place honey for us.    (Comb raised on drone foundation is said to be easier to extract because the cells are bigger:   if all goes well, we'll find out if this is true!)

Below:  the Junior Beekeeper's glove was stung--here's a photo of the (pulsing) venom sac.