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.