Fall Begins

As Doris buttons up the summer, I have noticed some of the bee-haviors are changing. Over the last month I have seen them become more aggressive when I open the hive. Wax and propolis production have changed. And, the hive is much more crowded. In the last two weeks, sugar syrup consumption has slowed as well.

The fall blooms are exploding right now. Doris' bees are are extremely busy. Almost as if they are in a hurry for something. There is more traffic at the entrance of the hive, today, than I think I have ever seen. The evenings have still been warm even though the temps have been dipping over night. Fall is in the air. Doris is definitely getting ready for winter. The workers are getting aggressive, especially if I have the hive open too long. Last weekend I was looking closely at some brood frames and they let me know I had seen enough. I was stung on my wrist. It seemed minor at the time but over the next few days the effects grew steadily worse. I had to see the doctor. I was prescribed some steroids and some anti-inflammatory as well as an epipen.

This picture was taken just after I started the medication. The swelling continued completely up my right arm.
Today, I spent very little time in the hive and they seemed much less agitated.

There are so many bees in the boxes now, I am concerned about not leaving them enough space when I take the super off the hive before winter. The two brood boxes are full of bees. The extra bees are spread completely throughout the super. There are huge numbers of bees foraging outside the hive as well, if entrance traffic is any indication. The brood pattern is getting tighter, covering less area on the frames. There is a lot more pollen being stored around the brood. Doris will be laying less eggs going into winter. They are apparently using the extra space as storage. The comb they are producing around the outside is slowing down a lot. I had hoped we would see twenty full frames of comb by now but the outside two frames in the bottom box are only about half way. The frames just inside that are 80-90 percent. When those are full, I can move them to the outside to encourage the bees to finish out the last two. The frames in the super have not yet been started. I believe they are just too busy moving cells around and foraging to build wax.

So they aren't cranking out the wax right now. No big deal, that means they don't need the sugar syrup as much. They were using almost as much as two gallons per month. Now they are down to about two quarts a week. Judging by the amount of pollen they are carrying in, I may not need to feed them any more patties this season. Propolis has not be produced almost at all. All of the parts I have been breaking loose lately are still free. I suspect this will change quickly when the wind starts blowing colder. They will have to work to seal off the drafts in the hive.

This summer we planted garlic in the garden. I found an odd bulb, this week, that I didn't want to use in the kitchen. I had seen some articles about garlic and varroa mites. I looked into it a little deeper and learned many beekeepers are using garlic powder in their powdered sugar treatment. Well, I don't have the garlic powder, just the bulb. Some other beekeepers are using garlic oil. Okay, maybe the cloves will do something. I thought, why not slice up the cloves and put them in the bottom and count the mite drop. There was only two mites on the bottom board after 48 hours. Not really impressive results. The plain powdered sugar seemed to work well this first year. I will keep it simple going forward. Although, the garlic powder does seem like a viable next step if the mites get out of hand in the future.

Two mites on the bottom board? That's not bad for early fall. The hive is full of bees. I have seen mites in the recent drone brood. Removing the drone cells, and regular powdered sugar treatments, could give Doris a head start for winter.

Bees Wax

Today I made a discovery that I think will help. Processing wax can be very sticky and messy. While I was bottling mead today, I managed to get a good deal of wax stuck onto one of our sauce pans.

I was using some honey strained from comb to sweeten the mead I had brewed. I heated the honey in the saucepan but I did not realize there was still wax in the honey. The wax separated in the pan and made a skin which created a ring around the pan.

I had read that the pans you use for wax would better be dedicated to wax. My own limited experience has been to struggle, heat, scrub, struggle, then give up removing bees wax. Then I remembered the PBW.

PBW is a detergent produced by Five Star that is commonly used for sanitizing brewing equipment. I had some on hand to clean my carboy so I tried it on the sauce pan. A little hot water, a good solution of PBW, and about twenty minutes of soak time, the wax wiped away, effortlessly. It really worked well. It broke down the wax completely. It didn't smear or spread. The wax just wiped away.

So my tip for removing bees wax, pick up a container of Five Star PBW. It is available at your local home brew supply store, and big online retailers. 

Go Broncos!

It seems Doris might bee a Broncos fan. I made a quick visit by the hive today. I topped off their sugar syrup. There were hundreds of gatherers carrying loads of pollen in orange as if they knew football season has begun.

The amount of gatherers were astonishing. I am not sure what flowers they were foraging but the pollen was consistent on all of them. The sunflowers are just about tapped out right now but the wildflowers are peaking in blooms. These girls definitely prefer the flowers with orange pollen.

The Timing of Everything

It's all about timing. Right? Seems my timing has been a little off. The weekly feedings and inspections have been fairly routine. I have become stumped on what to write about. Fed the bees, they look good, growing every week, and so on. I have been writing later and later each week, I just realized I did not post last week. So, today I sit so I can post, right after I completed a lengthy inspection. Hopefully this will catch my timing back up.

Last time, I was looking to see if the bees were using the new entrance I provided them in the top super. I haven't seen any traffic in there just yet. Although, today there was obvious signs the bees are using it. They are just not carrying stores into it yet because they are still working on the bottom box.

You can tell they are exiting here for their cleansing flights.

There are plenty of bees to occupy space up here in the top box.













This #2 frame of the upper brood box is full of honey. The 1, 9, and 10 frames all look similar to this one. In the bottom box, the outer frames are getting there. They just aren't quite as full.

With several weeks until the the first freeze, I believe they still have time.

This time of year, there is a lot of talk about nectar dearths (dry periods of little nectar production from the flowers). Many honey producers are removing any remaining supers from the hives. I have been paying close attention to the hummingbirds in my back yard. They have been going through cycles, visiting my feeder less frequently when nectar is flowing. Right now, around here in Douglas County, there is large numbers of fall flowers coming out to bloom. The hummingbirds are visiting less frequently each day, and the bees have drastically slowed their production of burr comb and propolis. In fact, over the last two weeks, I have noticed the burr comb has almost dropped off completely. Today, the hive boxes were not stuck together the way they usually are. These bees are very busy doing something. I am sure it has to be the collection of nectar that has them occupied.

I am thinking constantly about the coming of winter now. I tried to get my eyes on Doris to see she is okay but had no luck. I can tell by the amount of brood throughout the hive, that she is doing very well. I am also looking for signs of mites and viruses. The bees all are looking very healthy.

Last week I noticed several drone cells at the bottom of the top box. I have not been able to figure out why they are producing drones this close to winter. My biggest concern with drone cells is that mites reproduce in the same cells. Drone production is mite production. Doris certainly does not need a bunch of mites going into winter.

 The drone cells only seem to be along the bottom of frames 4, 5, and 6. It looks like they are being laid intentionally.

The drone larvae are as large as the worker bees. Many of the drone cells were damaged when I removed the frames. I do not afford this hive enough space to regularly produce drones, so these large cells are damaged easily. Those that were not damaged, I removed. Less drone cells means less mites. That helps keep the lazy mooches out of the food stores too.

Another character I realized has timing is aggression. As I notice the nectar flow is on right now, I am also noticing the bees are more aggressive than they were two weeks ago. With a dearth comes robbing, bees are defending their stores from other foragers. With the nectar flow, the other foragers are too busy to rob. Doris' bees are defending against me, since I'm about the only intruder. One managed to make her way inside my veil today. She got my heart pumping but didn't manage to sting me.

There is something that has contributed to the writers block lately. We have been getting page views from all over the world. It is just a little added pressure to me because I feel like I should have great material to offer anyone. This beekeeping experience is isolated to Douglas County, Colorado. I know I can't offer something to everyone but I hope my observations help. We have views from France, Germany, U.K., Romania, Australia, Egypt, Israel, Italy, and Kuwait. It makes me feel proud to share.