Oct 22, 2011

Decided to take Mike's advice and make a 'sugar feeder' for each of the hives. Details can be found at http://www.pennapic.org/feedingsugar.html My original hive is loaded with bees, but the newest hive, not so many! Plan on making some sort of wind breaker for the hives in the next week or two. Other than that, they're on their own for the winter.

Oct 18,2011

Added 1 gallon of syrup to each of the hives. This is going to be the last syrup for the year. Hope they had enough to make if thru the cold months!

Oct 11, 2011

Added 1 gallon of syrup to each of the hives.

Oct 3, 2011

Added 1 gallon of syrup to the old hive. New hive still had syrup in it.

Oct . 2, 2011

I emailed some pics of the bee beard to Mike. He called me back suggesting the beard looked like it had a queen in it. Mike recommended that I install an emery board (don’t quote me on that name). It’s basically a one inch board that goes around the parameter of the hive between the top deep and the top feeder. The board has a little slot in it that allows the bees to go in and out of the hive. Mike thought that this small opening around the center of the beard would allow the bees along with the queen to reenter the hive. He said sometimes you get a 2 queen situation and one queen along with a bunch of bees go outside the hive. I guess they normally swarm to another location, but maybe the weather kept them close to the hive. Anyway, he said if I get both queens back in the hive they’ll battle it out resulting in 1 being killed! I put the board on today, but in the process a lot of the bees lost their grip on the hive. I managed to scoop most of them up and dumped them into the top of the hive after removing the top feeder. I’ll check tomorrow to see if they cluster on the outside again. I guess nothing is predictable with bees.

Oct 2, 2011

OK, what the heck is going on?? The bee are still forming a beard on the front of the old hive. They've been there for several days now and the weather has been terrible. Lots of rain and very cool temps for this time of year. It was 44 degrees this morning! I called Mike yesterday and told him about the bees, but he really didn't think there was anything I could do to get the bees to go back into the hive. I also called Tom Peck and ask if he had any suggestions. Tom thought this was unusual, but also didn't really have any suggestions. Tom said not to worry too much, the bees will take care of themself. He recommeded keeping the guard off for a while. Here are some shots of the beard:

Sept 29, 2011

Added 1 gal syrup to each hive top feeder. Each gal contained 1/2 rounded tablespoon of Fumagilin-B. Also put a mouse guard on the entrance of each of the hives.  Returned to checkout the hives several hours later and discovered the bees had created a 'beard' on the top front of the old hive. Thought the mouse guard might be restricting the bees from re-entering the hive, so I remove the guard on the old hive. Checked back several hours later and the bee beard was still there. Weather forecast for the next couple of days is cooler temps and rain. Hoping the bees soon head back into the hive!

Sept 20, 2011

Added 1 gal syrup to each hive top feeder. Each gal contained 1/2 rounded tablespoon of Fumagilin-B. This protects against Nosema apis, a microscopic, single=celled parasite which causes Nosema disease in honey bees.

Sept 12, 2011

Added 1 gal syurp to each hive top feeder.

Sept 4, 2011

Filled up the 2 mason jars with syrup. Put the remainder of syrup in the 2 hive top feeders. Total of 2 gallons used.

Aug 31, 2011

Setout 2 - 1 pint mason jars filled with syrup next to the hives. Put the remainder of the gallon of syrup in the old hive.

Aug 29,2011

Flip flopped the deep boxes on the old hive and added a gallon of syrup to each of the top feeders.

Aug 19, 2011

Put a gallon of syrup in each of the top feeders.

August 18, 2011

Well, I managed to leave both hives alone for several weeks, so it was now time to check them out and see what's going on.

I first opened the old hive and things were a little disappointing. No activity in the 'honey super'! Guess that was wishful thinking. The 'upper deep' had real good build out of brood and honey in 6 or 7 frames. The 'lower deep' had a little honey build out and no capped brood. I assume the queen has only been laying in the 'upper deep' recently. Hopefully she'll soon move to the lower and start laying there. I put everything back together on the hive minus the 'honey super'. I also added the top feeder to the hive. I'll mix up some syrup tomorrow to start the fall feeding.

I next opened the new hive and it was also a little disappointing. The 'upper deep' really didn't have much activity other then some comb build out. I was expecting to see more honey. The 'lower deep' had pretty good brood and honey build out on 6 or 7 frames. And...for the first time on my own....I found the queen! Put everything back together and added a top feeder to the hive.

July 28, 2011

Well, in addition to keeping bees, we also feed Hummingbirds. Little did we think they would socialize with each other!!

July 25, 2011

Checked the hives today and they both seemed to be doing really well. Lots of bees and comb buildout. I added a new 'deep' box to the new hive and a Queen excluder and honey super to the old hive. I'll check them both in a couple of weeks to see if they're filling in.

July 11, 2011

Checked both hives today to see how the bees were doing. The new hive which currently has 1 deep and a top feeder seems to be doing really well. Since we installed a new Queen several weeks ago she has been very productive. The hive has excellent comb and brood build out. I decided not to a a new deep until I get a little more build out of the frames. Right now they have a little more then half of the frames built out, so hopefully in a week or two more will be full. I did change the reducer opening to the next larger opening. Video was taken of this inspection but due to technical difficulty, it didn't come out very well!

The original hive is  also doing really well. It currently has 2 deeps and a top feeder on it. I inspected both deeps and they have excellent build out. See video below. I decided to leave the top feeder on the hive and wait another week or two before adding a Queen excluder and a honey super. Added a gallon of syrup and called it a day.

July 6, 2011

Checked both hives to see if they needed any syrup. The new hive still had plenty, but I needed to add a gallon to the old hive.

June 30, 2011

Check both hives today to see how things were going. The first thing I noticed was both hives are feeding on the syrup, so I'll keep feeding them. The old hive has really nice comb build out on the top 'deep'. I also noticed eggs and larvae  in the hive. The new hive also seems to be doing OK. I did see some larvae, but didn't really see any eggs. That doesn't mean there are no eggs, only I wasn't seeing any. I also did not see the queen in either hive, but I never do! I filled the top feeders and put everything back together. Guess I'll have to start deciding when to put the first 'super' on the old hive. I really don't want to rush things......want to make sure I have a good build up of the hive for winter.

June 24, 2011

Checked the top feeder on both hives today and it did not appear that the bees were using them. Gee, maybe maybe there still is enough out there for them to feed on! I'll check back in a few days to see if they're using the feeders. If not, I'll probably remove them.

June 23, 2011

Checked the new hive today to see if the queen had been released and she was. I removed the queen cage and put a top feeder on the new hive. I'll give her a week or two and then check back to see if she's laying eggs.

June 21, 2011

Mixed up some sugar syrup this morning to start feeding the bees on Mike's suggestion. In the afternoon, I suited up and went down to the hive to install the top feeders. I started with the first hive by giving them a good smoking. (I learn quick!) I let a couple of minutes go by and then removed the top and inner cover. I pulled out the middle frame of the upper deep and saw that it had a nice drawn comb on it. They seem to be doing good even after transplanting one of the frames several days ago. I put the top feeder on the hive and filled it with 1 gal of syrup. I then closed the hive by putting the top cover on the feeder.

I pulled the top and inner cover on the 2nd hive and discovered that the new queen was still in her cage. I didn't want to disturb things so I put the top and inner cover back on and decided to hold off on using the feeder for a couple of days.

No stings today!

June 16-17-18, 2011

June 18, 2011

Mike came over today to check out the new hive. After pulling and examined several frames, he said that there were a lot of Drone cells on the frames and it didn't appear that the Queen was performing. Mike said we should replace the Queen in the new hive, so he first located and removed the old Queen. Since the new hive did not have any brood developed and the bees were starting to get a little 'old', Mike said we should transplant one of the brood frames from my first hive. This will allow new bees to hatch while waiting for the new Queen to start laying eggs. We pulled the middle frame from the first hive (after making sure the Queen was not on it) and placed it in the middle of the new hive. We then closed up both of the hives. Mike said to wait several hours to let the bees in the new hive realize that they no longer had a Queen. At that point I should put the new Queen cage into the new hive. In several days she should be released from her cage and start laying eggs.  Mike also suggested that due to the lack of flowering plants, I should start feeding both hives. I'll set up the feeders in a day or two.

June 17, 2011

OK, let try this again!

I really wanted to check a little closer to see what was going on in the new hive, but since my bad experience yesterday I decided to 'suit up'! I purchased a one piece painting suit at Lowes for $8. No nooks and crannies in this for the bees to fly into! Also, I modified my bee veil to make sure the straps pulled down both the front and back. The straps fit under the arms to keep everything nice and tight. I also broke out the bee gloves. Yes they're clumsy, but I ain't getting stung again today! So, fully protected, I fired up my smokers and off to the hive I went. I decided to video all this, but my battery's went dead about 1 minute after I turned on the camera! Oh well!! Anyway, the hive inspection went well this time. NO STINGS and the bees were a lot calmer since I used smoke. (Lesson learned!) I did however not like what I saw in the hive. No eggs, larvae or brood. I did find what looked like supersedure cells and a lot of the cells that were unusually 'built out' vs just being capped. I closed up the hive and decided to give Mike a call.

June 16, 2011

BAD BEE DAY!!! OK, let's just start out by saying I got stung today!

I wanted to see how things were going in the new hive, so I decided to take a look. Being complacent due to my previous successful inspections, I made two fatal mistakes. I didn't use the smoker and I didn't have the bottom of my veil sealed tight.

I opened the hive and started inspecting the frames. I wasn't seeing any eggs or brood, but I thought a did see superedure cells. Also, a lot of the cells had been 'built out' rather then just being capped. I'm thinking the Queen might not be in the hive or is not performing. That's when several bees found their way into the underside of my veil. Since this happend before, I just walked away from the hive, took off my veil and shook out the bees. After doing this I headed back to the hive to continue my inspection. Well, more bees found their way into my veil and this time they really seemed 'angry'! I decided it was time to stop the hive inspection, so I put everything back together. I started to feel the bees crawling around my head and decided to go into panic mode and took off! After running away from the hive I ripped off the veil and started smacking the bees on my head. I got several of them, but several of them got me! And to make matters worse, additional ones were after me. I ran up to the house and went into the mud room, but about half a dozen of those buggers followed me. I did finally manage to kill the bees that followed me into the mud room. Well, after all this, it was now time to sit back and figure out what went wrong......

June 7, 2011

On Monday Sue and I went up to Peck's Bee Supply to purchase wax foundations and some other supplies. Need to get another deep ready for the first hive!

On Tuesday I had to string wire on 10 deep frames and cleanup 10 others that were already wired. I had to drill out the sides for the grommets, but found that it was pretty easy to wire the foundations although it did take a little time. I wore my biking gloves to stretch the wire nice and taunt. Without the gloves the wire really dug into the skin! Forgot to take pictures of this process!

Next, I had to put wax foundations in the 20 frames. This also was pretty easy. By the time I got to the 20 frame, I was pretty slick at doing it! I did a little research online and found that you could use an electric transformer to heat the cross wires into the wax rather then using a tool to embed them. I  first tried using a transformer that we had to run an electric toy train. Not enough juice to heat the wire! I next tried using a 12 volt car battery charger. It has 2 settings, 1.5 and 10 amp. The 10 amp setting worked best and would heat the wire in 5-10 seconds. After that amount of time, I removed the contacts and gently pressed the wax foundation into the heated wires. This process works great. Guess I should have taken a video of it!

After a had the frames ready to go, I went down to check my hives. On the original hive, the bees had drawn comb on most of the frames. The one outer frame was still untouched, so I swapped it with the one right aside of it. Since the book says you can have 2,000 new bees emerging every day, I thought it was time to put on a second deep hive body. I kept the entrance reducer on the small opening, but will probably move it to the larger opening sometime this week or next. I closed up the hive by putting the inner and outer cover on top of the new body.

While I was checking hives, I thought I'd see how the bees were doing in the new hive. They have nice comb drawn on about 4 or 5 frames, but I really didn't see and eggs or capped broad. Since I went thru this with the first hive, I thought I'd wait a week or two and check back before being worried that the queen isn't laying eggs. 

I did take pictures when I checked the two hives, but they all turned out blurry! I accidentally had the camera on max zoom. It's a little hard handling the frames and taking pics at the same time. I did get a nice shot of my foot, but didn't think anyone would be interested in that.....

June 1, 2011

Checked the new hive today to see if the Queen was out of her cage and she was. I removed her empty cage, the canned syrup and the temporary box I had them in. I sat the can feeder outside the hive in case the bees still wanted to feed on it. I then closed the hive by putting the inner and outer covers back on top of the hive. I'll check back in a week or two to see if she'll laying eggs.

May 29, 2011 Newbeez

Well, we had a busy (as a bee!) day today. Sue and I went up to Bjorn Apiaries to pickup 2 packages of Russian hybrid bees. One for us and one for our neighbor. We now have 3 neighbors keeping bees! Forgot Tupelo Honey.....think Lewisberry Honey!!

After lunch today, Chris, Evan and Vulcan came down to help install the bees into the hive.

But, before installing the new bees, we thought we'd checkout the existing hive. Things were looking real good. Lots of comb buildout and lots of brood cells (the tan capped cells). We also spotted a lot of larvea that hadn't been capped yet. The white capped cells are honey. I was really surprised, some of the frames are starting to get heavy!

We started out the new install by having Evan carry the bees to the hive:

It was now time to get down to the real work. Installing the bees:

Since I had the help of Master Bee Keeper Evan, things went really smooth. But as you can see in the above video, bees were flying everywhere when we finished the install! Unfortunately, this is when we had a first bee casualty. Poor Vulcan, he was just standing there minding his own business............... :-(

May 23, 2011

It was a nice warm day today and I was down at the barn, so I thought I'd see how the bees are doing. Lots of bees flying in and out of the hive. Many of the incoming bees had pollen packed on their legs. I lifted the top cover to see if many bees were still using the feeder and discovered only a couple were actually feeding. I also noticed a few ants crawling around the hive. Since the bee weren't really using the feeder anymore and I'm sure it's what's attracting the ants, I decided to remove the top feed. I removed it and dumped the remaining syrup out in the field. In place of the top feeder I installed the inner cover with the end notch facing up and toward the front of the hive. On top of that I installed the top cover pushing it forward to make sure the notch would provide ventalation to the hive. If I still have ant problems, I might place each of the 4 legs of the hive stand in the cut off bottoms of milk cartons. I'll then fill these with water. This will act as a moat to keep the ants out. I have been told however that the bees will take care of the ants on their own. We'll see!

May 22, 2011

Mike from Bjorn Apiaries called and then stopped by to check my hive. We opened the hive and did the frame inspections just like yesterday only this time we found what we were looking for. Mike was able to find and point out to me the Queen. He also showed me cells that had eggs in them. Boy are those eggs small! And the final thing he showed me was capped brood. I swear they weren't there yesterday!! Sue will back me up on that....

May 21, 2011

Time for my 1st real inspection of the hive to see what's going on. I opened the hive like normal and inspected each frame one by one starting with the one closest to the side. Most of the outer frame didn't have much happening, but I had 3 inners frames that had about 3/4 build out of comb. Man, these bees work fast! Some of the top celled had a white capping. I beleive there's honey in those cells. Also had numerous cells filled with pollen. Several different colors: Gray, orange, yellow, etc. Lots of other cells had a 'water' like fill. Not sure exactly what that is... I checked for supersedure cells, but didn't see any. That good because it means the bees aren't looking to create a new Queen or looking to swarm. What I didn't see was the Queen herself nor did I see any eggs or lavrae. I also didn't see any capped brood, so now I'm starting to wonder if the Queen is alive in the hive and is actively laying eggs. Not in panic mode yet, but I think I'll send an email to Mike at Bjorn Apiaries and get his opinion as to whether he thinks things are OK.

May 15, 2011

Checked the top feeder on the hive and discovered it was empty. I added another gallon of sugar syrup. Same mixture as before only used a little Honey B Healthy. This provides the bees with essential oils and it supposed to be a 'more natural' solution to bee health issues.

May 12, 2011

Well the bees have been in the hive for several days now so it's time to check and see if the Queen has been released from her cage. I opened the hive by first removing the top cover followed by removing the top feeder. I pulled the Queen's cage from the middle of the frames and discovered she was indeed released. This is great news! Hopefully she'll be laying eggs in several days and our colony will start expanding. After removing the Queen cage, I installed the 10th frame and also removed a little burr comb that had been built up where the cage was placed. Put the feeder and cover back on the hive and called it a successful day.

May 8, 2011 & May 10, 2011

May 10,

Had our first bee visitors today. Mom, Laurie, Landri along with our neighbor Diann and her granddaugher Sarah stopped over to checkout the bees.

May 8,

Today we installed our bee package that we purchased from Bjorn Apiaries. These bees are Russian Hybrids that originated from Hardeman's Apiaries in Georgia. I used a top feeder on the hive filled with a sugar syrup made with 5lb of sugar and 2 1/2 quarts of water. I also installed an entrance reducer set to it's smallest opening. This will give the bees a smaller area to defend until the colony expands. Filming was done by my brave wife, Sue. No one was stung in this process!

Here's a video of the install:

May 7, 2011

Hi! My names Dave and this blog is an attempt to document my new hobby of Bee Keeping. I plan to make postings each time I interact with the bees. Hopefully you will be able to learn from my mistakes. And if I happen to do something right, then we both learned something! Thanks for reading.