Pollen patty

Lifted the top feeder from the east hive, and gave the bees a pollen patty bought yesterday in Guelph. This is flat, about 1/2" thick, full width of the hive, and about half its length, so there's plenty of space for the bees to enter the chimney of the top feeder--which they seem not to have discovered. However, judging from how quickly they moved from their cluster to the pollen patty, that was gratefully received. NB--the pollen patty comes with paper top and bottom, and one paper has a grid of holes in it, about two inches apart. I decided to put the paper with holes on the bottom, and peeled the paper off the upper side of the patty, figuring that if the bees wanted no paper, they can take pollen from the top, and etc. etc.

Update

Opened both hives; took off winter covers. East hive seems okay, didn't move the frames to check, tho'; west hive caput. Put a top feeder on the east hive, filled with 3 liters of sugar syrup, and opened front entrance, scraped debris from bottom board and found some honey along with the winter-killed bees. Called bee-supply, pollen patties arrived this morning, ready for pickup at 1:30; going to Guelph this p.m. with friend and her dog for checkup at OVC, will pick up a couple.

It's spring!

It's spring, and we have a new pair of hive-top feeders, which the YBeek and I painted this afternoon, second coat tomorrow. The east hive was busily flying in the midday warmth day before yesterday; both hives show signs of cleansing flights. We bought 8kg of granulated sugar, and used half to make up 1:1 spring syrup.

Winter prep.

Thanks to the YBeek's mum and the EYBeek who came along to toddler-sit while the YBeek and Patrick and I prepped our two hives for winter.

Here's our task list for Saturday, 23 October:

Take along: SMOKER; HIVE TOOLS; RUBBER HAMMER; wire brush; duct tape; syringe; medication.

1. Lift off both brood boxes from a hive, and as you do this, remove strips and put these in a safe place for toxic disposal; assess weight of supers. You must remove four anti-varroa strips from each hive, two from each brood super. Count ‘em!

2. Remove screen bottom board, and clean bottom board (wire brush). Reverse position of bottom board, so opening is at front, closed behind.

3. Replace bottom brood box, making an assessment of its weight; if it is entirely empty, no brood, no bees, no honey, this can be removed, but advice is just to put it back in that instance; see what progress in the new frames; if none, then replace with old raised-comb frames.

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 sugar i.e. your feeding syrup.

5. Place the second box on top of the first, having estimated its weight, i.e. "heavy" or "light" or "in between" and look at new frames, replace with raised comb frames if they haven’t worked on this; one hive will get back the full frame of honey.

6. Dribble as in (4) above;

7. Place above that the inner cover, with the 3" wide slot taken from the rim placed directly over the top edge of the top super at the front;

8. Close off the oval opening in the middle of the inner cover with bee escape sealed with tape; place the entrance reducer at the entrance of the hive, reduced, to medium size.

IN ANOTHER COUPLE OF WEEKS WE WILL:

9. Place above the inner cover 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.

Everything went pretty smoothly. Observation: we gave each hive six new plastic brood-super frames when we took off honey, attempting to remove some old frames with gunk-filled comb. This is not an experiment which bears repeating. In future, give new brood-super frames in spring. We left each hive with a couple of new frames in which they'd raised comb, and returned frames we'd taken off.

Update

The YBeek was in charge last week while I was in St. Martin's, NB, and he did a great job feeding the bees. The morning before I left, just about to take the dogs to the boarding kennel, Salsa was skunked by a bees-enthusiast skunk; she was skunked a week before, too, pretty dramatically having chased the skunk under the deck in front of the back door. And, while I was away, the skunk, or another, dug around in front of one hive, and scrabbled in front of both--skunks like to place their front feet on the lip of the hive, and eat bees coming and going, and whatever they can reach inside the hive. We have two brood supers, and on cold nights the bees cluster up in the hive because it's warmer, so we may have avoided much damage. Anyway, upon my return, bought two Have-A-Heart traps, although I don't, when it comes to skunks, and placed these in front of the hives, and one was tripped night before last, and none last night; the skunk seems to have been suitably discouraged, and the bees can fly through the traps' wires. The bees have been consuming sugar syrup (made as strong as seems possible) at an astonishing speed, which is very good because evaporation must be more challenging when the entrance is reduced. I bought an additional 4kg of granulated sugar for them this morning and will make it up tonight. Next weekend, we remove the varroa strips, and drip-treat; and set their supers up for winter, reduce the entrances, etc. The black outer coverings will wait for another month or so; when it gets really cold.

Honey harvest 2010

Today we began work at 6 a.m. and knocked off at 3 p.m. without stopping for lunch = 9 hours.

We took off all the honey supers, and removed three old frames from each brood box, and put in new plastic waxed frames. We put two varroa-zapping strips in each brood box. These must be removed in 42 days. We put the hives back together with the winter exit top rear, and the screen boards still installed. These will come out and the winter exit flipped and back to front in 42 days when we remove the strips.

We extracted and strained a bit more than 38 litres of honey (36 litres plus 2 quarts).

Our team was as follows:

1. Patrick, who came with Thomas yesterday afternoon and sterilized the RubberMaid boxes with Javex, and washed and dried them and put them in the sun, and fetched the extractor and the honey pail from storage upstairs, and installed them on the kitchen table, and laid out the bee suits in the barn and wiped down the tables in the barn and the house on which we'd work today, and we suited up and began to take off honey supers, pull frames and so on, when we were joined by

2. Terry, who suited up and joined us at the hives, and I retired to smoker-duty, and we pulled the remaining honey supers, and opened the hives, pulled the old brood frames and substituted three new ones in each brood box, and put in the varroa-zapping strips, two to a hive, and put the hives back together for 42 days and later supervised honey bucket and its two strainers, one coarse and the other fine and

3. Sherry and Jacob, who ran errands for us, and took the RubberMaid boxes containing the full frames of honey, from which the bees had been brushed off, to the picnic table near the house and afterwards in the kitchen Sherry uncapped frames while Jacob manned the extractor with Patrick, and

4. the YBeek and the EYBeek, who helped with the frames, and settled down to supervise Thomas with the Thomas railway, and later after Thomas had left, helped filling jars, wiping jars, putting tops on jars, labeling jars, wiping, washing, and generally filling in and doing whatever needed to be done and

5. Mary-Lynne, who heated honey from the extractor so the wax is easier to remove, worked with four strainers, and continually refilled the strainer in the top of the honey bucket (and organized that crucial segment of work) while Terry stirred the top container in the honey bucket and

6. I organized the jars and filled them (the YBeek filled some) and the EYBeek, and Daniel (our neighbour), and Jacob all helped wipe the jars and put them in boxes.

We set aside the half litre for the YBeek to exhibit at Ancaster Fair. And, a litre for Tammy Quinn, who helped exchange drone-comb in the summer. And, a litre went to the next-doors, who live next to the hives.

And, now it is time for me to SIT DOWN!

Crisco/Vaseline slathered file folders

YBeek returned from holidays; we placed Crisco/Vaseline slathered file folders under the hives on Wednesday at noon; today, Friday, at noon I will removed these and deliver them for a varroa count before he leaves for summer camp. Here's The Count, received 3 August 2010: red hive, 68; yellow hive, 77.

Drone-comb frame exchange

Since the YBeek et al are on holidays in the Maritimes, Tammy Tigchelaar Quinn entrusted runabout-age Aurora to her mum, and helped with the scheduled drone-comb frame exchange this morning. Thank you, Tammy!

We started with the east hive, new this year. Their drone comb was fully-drawn and capped, mostly brood. We gave them the frozen/thawed wooden frame, which has drone foundation, interestingly partly worker-cell drawn--that must have been a challenge! They had two honey supers, and we found the top (first given) super moderately heavy; the bottom super, light. So we put the hive back unchanged.

The west hive, last year's swarmed hive, must contain 100,000 bees. They had three honey supers, two very heavy, and the third moderately heavy. Their drone comb was raised, but empty at first glance--i.e. not capped, which seems odd. Perhaps that queen has stopped laying drones. Perhaps drone brood is within but not ready for capping. (We will look into the cells at leisure.) Has she swarmed? If so, she left behind an enormous population. We will check the brood chambers for eggs when we go back on 6th August. We replaced the frame with the frozen/thawed green-plastic drone-frame won at our bee seminar. We then gave them an empty honey super, and replaced their three supers in order: that hive now has four honey supers.

Our next date to go into the hives and exchange drone comb is 24 days from now, or Friday, 6 August. Tammy, who is interested in keeping bees, would like to help extract, around Labour Day.

Sunday, 20 June 2010

First, a reference and revision. Ontario Bee Journal, vol 29, no. 3, June 2010, p. 25, Drone Brood Removal for the Management of Varroa Mites: "...Leave the drone bood frame in for 24-28* days ...*If freezing drone frames you should replace the frames every 24 days, as the bees only need a few days to clean out the dead drone brood." This is a revision from my seminar notes: We are now on a 24-day schedule. 14 July the drone frames must be switched. The JBeek & Co. will be away; perhaps Patrick will be free to come along and help on Monday, 12 July.

This morning we accomplished the following:

Removed drone frames from each hive, and replaced the west hive with their own frame, frozen after removal during our last session, and thawed 24 hours before replacement in the hive; we gave the east hive a new frame of drone comb, and I was glad to see that they'd raised drone comb on the plastic drone-foundation we won in a draw at our bee-seminar this spring (was wondering if had painted wax too thickly).

Gave each hive a new honey super. The west hive's single honey super was perhaps half full, but had enough weight to warrant a second honey super; the east hive's top super was estimated by the JBeek's dad to weigh 80 lbs.; the newer super underneath was also heavy; we gave this hive a third, empty honey super on top of the queen excluder, and replaced the two top supers in order. These honey supers have foundation, no drawn comb.

Weeded in front of the hives.

List of things to do on Sunday, 20 June

30th day of drone comb is 24 June, but that's not a handy date so we're set for Sunday, 20 June at 7:30 a.m. (hoping for sleepy bees). Here's a to-do list:

On Saturday, 19 June, remove the west hive's last month's frozen drone comb frame from the freezer.

On Sunday, 20 June:

West hive: remove single honey super, and estimate weight.

Remove the queen excluder.

Remove drone comb frame from the top brood box, and, replace with the thawed drone comb frame in the busiest part of the brood. Place the removed drone comb frame in a plastic bag, and when you are finished work, put this in the freezer, labeled.

Lift the top brood box, and look for queen cells hanging down, and if you find these, destroy them, and mix up the busy part of the brood boxes a bit, give them a couple of new frames in exchange for old frames in the middle of the brood, and this will also serve to give them fresh frames in the brood boxes.

Replace the queen excluder.

If the honey super was heavy, give them a honey super of empty foundation on top of the brood boxes.

Put the heavy honey super on top of the empty one, and take a look at it: put the full comb on the outsides, and the unfinished comb in the middle.

East hive:

This hive has two honey supers at the moment. Remove these, having estimated weight. Remove the queen excluder. Take a look at the drone comb placed in the brood chamber three-plus weeks ago. You may find that because this was incorrectly (was it?) waxed, they have raised worker comb on it. Pull it, and freeze it either way. Replace with a frame of drone comb foundation. Look for queen cells between the brood boxes, destroy these, mix up the brood boxes a bit per above, replace old frames with new frames of worker foundation, etc. to give them some housekeeping to do during swarm season. Replace the queen excluder, and if the two boxes were heavy, give this hive a third empty honey super directly above the excluder, and take a look at the honey supers removed, move the empty comb to the middle and put the full comb to the sides, put them back in the order they were taken off.

Varroa count

The sticky boards were removed 48 hours after placement, and on Wednesday evening given to the JBeek to count varroa; he just phoned to say that the yellow hive's sticky board contains nine varroa mites, and the red hive's count is ten.

placed Crisco/vaseline slathered file folders

Placed sticky boards under the hives this morning; must be removed 48 hours from now; Wednesday morning, can go home with the JBeek for counting varroa on Wednesday after we go to the library.

Tuesday, 25 May 2010

First, an apology to the JBeek, who was at school when we worked on bees today.

Family visit this long weekend; last night, Patrick noticed a small beard of bees--sign of discontent--hanging from lip of the east hive,. So, he offered, when he and and Margaret stayed over for car service, to don the bee suits, light up the smoker, and "do" bees. After she went down for her nap, we accomplished the following:

West (new) hive:

1. We removed the drone comb frame from the top brood box of the (new) west hive, and discovered on it a good quantity of capped drone brood. We wrapped it in plastic and put it in the freezer to kill the contents; we will bring it out in thirty days, and the bees can clean out the dead-by-freezing varroa mite and honey bee larvae and start fresh.

2. We replaced this frame with fresh wax drone foundation, to be removed in 30 days and replaced with the frame placed in the freezer today.

3. We estimated the weight of the honey super, and judged that this new hive doesn't need a second honey super yet, but soon will. Patrick had brought down the four empty honey supers from the guest room closet one with foundation placed, and the other three I must clear out the wax from the crevices of the frames, by heating in a slow oven; place new foundation; must do that this week.

East hive:

1. We did NOT flip the incorrectly placed (upside down) screen bottom board; this hive is packed with bees and very heavy, and we judged it not worthwhile under the circumstances.

2. We removed the honey super, and it was heavy with honey, Patrick judged 40 lbs. i.e. full.

3. To give this hive a frame of drone-comb for varroa control, we did the following:

The top brood box was jammed with brood, so we took it off, and removed a frame from the outside of the bottom brood box, which was part-full of honey, no brood, and we placed this on the chair in front of the hives for the bees to clean. We moved the frames over until we could see the edge of the brood "basket ball" and we placed a frame from the outside of the top brood box on the edge of the bottom box's brood ball. We replaced the top brood box, and moved the frames so as to place the new green plastic drone foundation, which I had that morning covered with melted bees wax, in that important-to-bees space.

NB RE covering with bees' wax, as advised, I tried pouring melted wax onto the plastic foundation, and this warped the surface a bit, discovered after a bit of experimentation what's successful is to heat a dish of wax in the microwave so it's the consistency of a soft wax crayon, and then manually rub the disk on the surface, leaving a good covering of wax. I hope when they discover this, they will raise drone-comb, and not be inspired to place regular comb on top of the wax. We will know in a month. Maybe with that hive, shouldn't have bothered--should not have given them the opportunity for "error"; they seem gangbusters.

4. We then replaced the queen excluder, and placed a new honey-super on top of that, followed by the full honey super we'd taken off, followed by the inner cover, followed by the outer cover, followed by the brick.

We dumped the smoker into the metal garbage can on the far side of the compost bins. And, we removed our HOT suits!

Patrick and I haven't done this as a team for 22 or so years, and we were wonderfully smooth--thank you, Patrick!

We must now return in 30 days to exchange the drone-comb frames in the brood boxes.

Schedule

Here's a draft schedule drawn up from Sunday's OBA seminar:

For AFB-prevention, stop treating four weeks before main honey flow--around here is this dandelions or fruit trees? This year, ca 1 May, so this year, stop treating by 1 April, and because treatment is three times at 4-5 days interval, this year treatment START is mid-March. Since this year we're approximately three weeks early, should be pretty safe to start mid-March 2011. Treat again in the fall (after honey supers off). The idea is, hive may have trace amounts of bacteria picked up from other hives, etc., this is to zap these. To buy: OXYTET-25-S and powdered sugar.

EFB-prevention is same as AFB-prevention.

Chalk brood prevention = maintain strong hives and use hygienic stock.

Sackbrood = maintain strong hives, re-queen every two years with tested queens.

Trachial mites: spring: 65% formic acid pads placed on hives when temperature reaches 10C and brood is present; Mite awayII or 3 multiple application formic acid pads. For MiteAwayII, need a spacer rim (NB), leave 21 days, no honey supers, no screened bottom boards, no entrance reducers. So, place 21 days before placing honey supers and screen bottom board, but after removing the entrance reducer; how does this relate to foul-brood prevention schedule? Monitor in fall by sending away samples for microscopic examination.

Treat again in fall. To buy: two spacer rims; formic acid pads.

Varroa mite options: formic acid, oxalic acid, Apistan, CheckMite, Apivar, drone trapping, drone comb (this is our favoured option). Monitor. Apply Apistan or CheckMite or Apivar strips spring and fall, but if we monitor and find no mites in spring, then no need to treat? Treat after honey supers come off in fall. AND apply oxalic acid in late fall by trickle method. To buy: yellow and red file folders, we have new Crisco and vaseline, set of strips to place after honey comes off, oxalic acid (have syringe, etc.).

Schedule: during summer, regularly monitor for varroa; when honey supers come off around Labour Day, place strips for varroa; treat with Oxytet for AFB; for trachial mites, send away samples for microscopic examination, and my recollection is these must be taken from the brood frames, because the age of the bees is relevant--check this. If infestation level above 10% then treat with formic acid pads or MiteAwayII. Late in the fall before wrapping, apply oxalic acid by trickle method. Spring schedule starts mid-March, write in calendar.

Revise these quick notes.

To do 30 May/1 June

1. 2nd of May, placed drone comb in west hive, this must be removed 30 days later.

2. Place fresh drone comb in west hive,

3. place plastic frame in other hive, having painted this with beeswax.

4. flip incorrectly-placed screen bottom board, so that wide element is at the bottom.

5. when go to bee supply place, buy materials for two top-feeders

6. make checklist of medications; make sure have; for example, our epipen is outdated as of 1 June so must pick up new one from Fortino's before then.

Beekeeping and IPM seminar

On Sunday, 16 May 2010, the JBeek and I went along to Guelph to an all-day seminar "BEEKEEPING & IPM" (IPM= Integrated Pest Management) given by the Ontario Beekeepers' Association's Tech-Transfer Program's three "Bee girls".

We came home with a thick file of handouts and notes, plus our draw-prize: a drone-comb plastic deep frame for varroa control. Memorably, during a quiz at the end of the day, our instructor rewarded each correct answer by fast-pitching suckers, and the JBeek proved adept at both answering and catching.

Summary: the varroa mite is the main threat; if these are controlled, the hives are more resistant to the other main problems: 1. American Foulbrood (AFB), a bacteria affecting brood; 2. European Foulbood (EFB), a bacteria affecting brood; 3. Chalkbrood, a fungus affecting brood; 4. Sacbrood, a virus affecting brood; 5. Honey Bee Tracheal Mites (HBTM), a mite; 6. Nosema disease--(a) apis and (b) ceranae--caused by microsporidians; and (7) wax moth.

We learned about "soft" treatments, for example, screen bottom boards for varroa (mites fall through and can't get back up into the hive)--and the wider element in the bottom board goes at the bottom (one of our boards is upside down--we must change this, next chance we have); place drone-comb in the hive, remove and replace every 30 days. And, we learned about "hard" treatments.

NB: On 10 July at Ancaster's fairgrounds, OBA and the Golden Horseshoe Beekeepers' Association are co-hosting the OBA's summer meeting.

Friday, 7 May 2010

Very cool and rainy spring day; no sign of bees outside. Removed file folders placed 48 hours ago; I found no varroa (which isn't saying much because I can't see 'em), the JBeek's mum laid the folders out on newspaper on their big dining table, and looked closely and found no varroa, and after the JBeek came home from school he did the final, official, careful examination, and phoned to say that ... he found no varroa. I'll Crisco some file folders to stay for a week so if any varroa fall through the screen board they'll get stuck and not be able to crawl back into the hive, then we'll put down fresh Crisco-folders and do another 48 hour monitoring check.

Wednesday, 5 May 2010

This morning, placed a yellow and a red file folder slathered with Crisco on the yellow and red screen boards; must remember to remove these on Friday morning, for the varroa load count. Will place fresh slathered file folders at that time, and leave these on until the next test, since the Crisco will trap fallen varroa.

The JBeek with his sharp young eyes must do the varroa count; maybe he'll have time over the weekend.

NB: We've put the red screen board on the west hive, and the yellow screen board on the east hive, so the positions are reversed from last year. So, this year will designate west hive (that's the new hive, in the old yellow hive's position) and the east hive (that's the hive new last year which swarmed late, took a month off to hatch and mate a queen, gave a bit of honey late in the season, and survived the winter--is mega-strong this spring.

I have managed to splatter bees' wax on the inside of the microwave (don't ask!). Lesson: stick to the double-boiler.

3 May 2010

At the bee hives, the turmoil of yesterday evening seems forgotten. Bees are flying happily, and if I stand under the crabapple tree, now in full bloom, the humming of thousands of bees working the blossoms is, not to be too crass/mundane, like listening to the 403 on a foggy day. Did not place the file folders but they're laid out: first thing tomorrow will shove 'em under the hives on a couple of cookie sheets.

Notes, 2 May 2010

6 April, drove to Guelph with a bottom board, deep super, inner cover, and outer cover, and bought a ten-frame hive from young Tibor Szabo, drove it home and the YBeek's dad put the unit where the old yellow hive stood.

The spring weather is about three weeks more advanced than usual, and the bees have been flying hard taking advantage of the fruit trees in full bloom now. We had planned to work with the bee hives ten days ago, but were put off by cold rainy weather. Now it has turned warm again. 1 May, noted a small curtain of bees in front of the red hive, sign of a swarm coming up.

Today we put a team together, and worked our way through the task list in the next post, set the hives up for summer weather. We did not put the Crisco file folders on the bottom boards under the screen bottoms; I will do that tomorrow. It was suggested at Guelph that we leave a file folder there permanently--changing it from time to time--in addition to the fresh file folders put down for varroa counts. The Crisco traps the varroa mites, so they can't crawl back up into the hive.

We put one frame of drone comb foundation into the new yellow hive's top brood box. This must be removed in 30 days and replaced with another frame of drone comb. This is the most effective varroa control, but fussy.

We did not add a frame of drone comb to the red hive's top brood box.

The red hive was packed full of bees, very young, and they clustered and fell in front of the hive, behind the hive, onto the cart, from which they migrated en masse onto the barn wall, etc. If we had been professional beekeepers we might have found the queen; as it was, we worked as quickly and steadily as we could, and did what we had to. We just have to hope that we didn't destroy her.

I expect that if she's outside the hive, when I go down in the morning, she will have a cluster around her, and the whole cluster can be returned to the hive. If the hive was as close to swarming as it seemed to be, she may have slimmed down to be able to fly, so she can get back into the hive.