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.