New Season

Another season begins and I can say with confidence, all three colonies have made it through the winter.

Doris is hard at work. She is laying eggs and bossing the workers around. There are still some older bees in the colony but the majority of the workers are young and the numbers are growing.

Here is Ethyl, working hard with her colony. She also has a few older workers there but her numbers are pulling ahead of the other two hives.

This is Lucy II. Last July I introduced a new queen bred from Ethyl who was inserted into another box above one of the hives. That queen shortly disappeared. Coincidentally, Lucy's colony re-queened themselves while I was distracted with what was happening with Doris. I was almost convinced that this new queen was the daughter of Ethyl. Upon this inspection it seems pretty unlikely as she and her workers look very Italian. She too, is laying eggs and collecting pollen.

Overall, It is starting out to be a good year. The colonies are starting out well.

Sunny Days

A bee in flight while the sun beams down.

There has been a lot of sun, and a lot of moisture up to this point, for the year. So how many wildflowers are needed for an apiary to be successful? There is an overabundance of wildflowers and flowering landscaping around our queens. Bees forage for miles. Within a couple miles there is residential neighborhoods with elaborate floral gardens. The local HOA's gratuitously plant plots of flowers in common areas. Many common garden flowers are good for honey bees, like the butterfly bushes and the marigolds. There are miles upon miles of rural county roads that are lined with sunflowers, goldenrod, thistle, and dozens of other flowering weeds. 

Right here in the bee yard, the monkshood and the vetches are dying back like many of the other little white and purple flowers that have been blanketing the field. 

These flowers are just making way for the fall blooms to come in just like the dandelions and clover did a few months ago.

These tiny yellow flowers coming in now are too small to be obvious from the road as you drive by. There are millions of them across the field just like the vetches were in June. We definitely have plenty of flowers to support many colonies in this area.

Last weekend, I checked the queen-less hive to check the progress of the queen cells. They were all destroyed. I checked very carefully to find out if a new queen had taken over. I found brand new eggs. I found Larvae in all stages. And I found Doris.

Back from vacation and ready to go back to work, she is laying again and making her presence known. I saw her again today when I was checking up. I am not quite sure what made her take a hiatus.  

So ten days is not enough time for a new queen to take over operations. Further research revealed it should take approximately 23 days. Although, a new queen can emerge in about thirteen days. That is about how long it has been since I started over in the nucleus hive to create queens.

Allow me to introduce the un-mated daughter of Ethyl. Name to be determined once she is laying eggs. She was moved to a shallow hive box with some extra bees to take care of her until she mates naturally.

She is now occupying the apartment just above Doris, since Doris isn't using it. Doris is laying eggs and the workers are foraging but she is simply not productive. Lucy is filling her super with honey. She has not laid any eggs in the upper frames yet so she is still without a queen excluder. And Ethyl, well, she is doing what any beekeeper would expect.

Doris, although one of our first queens, is not considered to be productive. There is plenty of forage, although, she does not seem to build enough numbers at the right time of year to produce the surplus we are all looking for. Additionally, her bees tend to be a great deal more aggressive than the newer colonies in the yard. Doris' hive may need to be re-queened. It may be a little late in the season for this, but I am still learning about queen rearing and what makes a good queen. Perhaps we will look into it for next season if I can breed them. It is apparent that it takes a good queen to be successful.

Shuffling all the bees around today created quite a stir. The air was full of lost bees figuring out where they are supposed to go now.

By the end of it all, everyone is settled back in to their jobs, working in the bright sunshine.

Queens

I recently picked up some books on rearing queens. I wanted to know more about how queens are bread, separated, collected, and so on. I was convinced by authors Doolittle and Pellet of the importance of rearing queens in the role of a beekeeper. I went right to work with Ethyl, collecting a few frames and placing them in a nuc box. In no time, I had a frame full of queen cells.

About a week after I collected the frames from Ethyl, I was performing a routine inspection when I noticed Doris was not doing well at all. I could not locate her anywhere in the hive. There were no new eggs being laid. The youngest larvae I could find were about two days hatched.

I found this frame nearly completely empty. It had what looks like a poor attempt at queen replacement. The next frame was quickly running out of capped brood, too.

Back in the nuc hive, I was trying to isolate the queen cells to hopefully collect more than one queen. The workers were much better at digging them out, than I was at caging them. With this sudden queen disappearance, we had to act fast. I took the frame of queens and added them to the now queen-less hive.

 You can see scars in the comb where I had put queen isolating cages. The bees dug through the comb and dislodged the cages. I will write more about what I have learned later on when I have more to talk about.

Between both sides of the frame, there was a total of eleven queen cells. 48 hours later, the colony narrowed it down to just three. The workers not only discarded the queens, but virtually erased the cells. I wasn't sure what was going on. Could one of the cells have already hatched, mated and began laying eggs in that short amount of time? Oh yeah, I found brand new eggs when I rechecked two days after installing the frame of queen cells. Still, there is a clear age difference between the fresh eggs and the now week old larvae.

I checked the entire hive as thoroughly as possible, then went back and rechecked all the frames. I could not find any queens. I still have no idea who is in charge of this colony, or what I am doing wrong with the queen rearing. I will be going back to the books, but I did swap out another frame of brood from Ethyl to put in my queen box. Properly, there is already new cells started there. Ethyl is by far our best producing queen. It is astonishing to compare the two Italian queens that came from different breeders, and the the Carniolan. We definitely have three very different hives.

Page Views From Other Countries

Russia	110
France	38
Ukraine	30
United Kingdom	12
China	10
Canada	7
Germany	6
Romania	6
India	5

I hope everyone can get something out of this.

Some New Pics

We checked to see how Doris and the Gang were doing. Doris was two frames short of a full box of brood. She is definitely ready for a super. Surprisingly, I found no signs of mites. There was such a battle last year, I expected to have some number to count but there was none.

Ethyl got a super that had frames without foundation. She has done an excellent job, so far, building out these frames. There are larvae and eggs in this pearl white comb. 

If you look close, you might find Ethyl here. She got a marking today, some blue paint to match Doris. This is a frame with foundation that has also been built out and is full of eggs and larvae. This super is only about twenty percent built but these Carniolan bees have definitely lived up to the stereotype of rapid reproduction and comb production.

Ethyl also showed no signs of mites. I witnessed in previous inspections, workers removing larvae from cells in the brood comb. This is characteristic of a hygienic breed of bees.

While there were not many votes, the name that got got the most clicks in our survey was Lucy. So here we introduce our unexpected queen, Lucy. Lucy received a frame without foundation. Here she can be seen inspecting the pure white comb. If there were eggs laid here, they were too difficult to make out because of the lack of contrast between eggs and comb.

Lucy also got a marking, but hers did not turn out as well. I accidentally marked her wings and she ran too fast for me to correct it. We will check on her next week and try again if we get a chance.

Lucy is also ready to get a super. These bees are moving so quickly this year we should have no problems harvesting honey.

With the nectar flow nearing full swing, I have removed all of the feeders from the hives. There is plenty of honey being stored now and supers are being prepared for expanding these hives. Ethyl and Lucy both seem as though they prefer frames without foundation. I am planning on mixing frames in the supers so we can get comb honey and extracted honey from these hives. These deep brood boxes are full of bees right now and summer has not yet begun.

Full House(s)

Wednesday evening, we found an extra package of bees available. This package of Italians fills out the bee yard. I had hoped to eventually have three hives.


Because this was a leftover package, I got a deep discount. I decided to try shaking this package Wednesday night. I was hurried.

This queen is going to need a name. I am at a loss currently, but I am sure everyone will have some suggestions to offer.

If you recognize the box, I stole it from Doris. I consolidated her bees into the bottom box and split the drawn comb between the Ethel and the new Italians. I have a new bottom board made and I am working on a proper lid for this new hive.
 
Now we can officially call this an apiary. Since the bee yard is full, we will need to name a queen, but mostly we can look forward to big success this year.

The End of the Beginning

To round out the first year, we installed a new package of bees today. We received a package of Carniolans to compare against the Italians we have been working with. Doris is doing well but the cluster has become quite smaller than it was in March. We have experienced several consecutive weeks of cold and damp weather. Deep snow and harsh winds have defined April this year.

Fortunately, the Carniolans arrived trailing the last of the really bad weather. They have lots of warm weather and flowers ahead of them to build a good strong colony.

Allow me to introduce, her majesty, Queen Ethel. 

Some of my winter reading included the book Confessions of a Bad Beekeeper by Bill Turnbull. In his stories he references an imaginary conversation between some foraging bees. One he called Doris, who spoke of another named Ethel. Hopefully Doris and Ethel will have lots to share in our yard.

Doris generously shared two frames of drawn comb with a little honey and some pollen as a house warming present. This should allow Ethel to get right to it with the brood rearing. Carniolans are known for fast expansion in the spring.

This is a great looking package of bees. There is almost no dead bees on the bottom of the box. That should also help Ethel get off to a good start.

Some of Ethel's nurses were chatting up one of the drones that ended up in the package. Just like a male to flirt with the nurses.

Ethel is getting a marshmallow to keep her protected until everyone can calm down. We did this with Doris and Delores last year. A more experienced beek I met today asked me what the marshmallows were for. He said he had been just dumping out the queens for the last ten years. I guess that works for him. Ethel's workers will free her when she is ready.

Here are the bees from the top view. The box gets placed inside the hive the same as last year. They get a jar of syrup and a pollen patty. I will go back in and remove the box once the bees have all transitioned into the frames.

Ethel didn't get her new brood box decorated. We will have to fix her up when she is ready to expand.

There was some cold wind while we were installing the bees today. You can see there is still snow on the ground. We had to use the tractor to carry everything out to the yard because there was so much mud in the fields. The water is great for the flowers, which is good for the bees. Let the nectar flow.

Spring Stings

The first winter is over. The blog was forgotten but the bees were not. For the winter I placed an empty super with a few small sugar cakes inside. I wrapped the hive in black plastic to keep out the wind and provide some solar heat during the days. It seems to have been helpful except the reduced ventilation may have caused nosema. I am getting some medication for them so they can get to feeling better.

For Spring time, I removed the wrap and placed sugar syrup in the empty super. It seems to prevent freezing when the syrup is inside the hive. It has definitely been cold enough this week. The blizzard winds and feet of snow were short lived. Fortunately, I was able to shuffle around some frames to put their leftover stores closer to their cluster. While I was shuffling the frames around, Doris made an appearance to let me know she was in good spirits. There were fresh eggs in the frame I found her on.

Today, since it was sunny and warm, I thought I would stroll by to see how they made it through the blizzard. I didn't account for the winds and clouds coming in. I saw no bees outside so I decided to stick my head in and say hi. The second I lifted the lid, I was effectively bounced from the club with the precision of an Apache attack helicopter. She got me right in the jugular. I will not forget again, that bees like to be left alone when the weather is changing.

I will continue to feed the syrup to Doris' colony for a few weeks in order to administer the medication for nosema. Once we get the new colony, they will get all the same attention Doris did last season in order to get the new queen off to a good start. Doris made it through the first winter and her second spring is looking very optimistic. I will leave her alone mostly to forage and make honey all summer.

The new colony we ordered is of the Carniolan line. Hopefully they will be more tolerant of my terrible timing. They are delayed a few weeks because of an abnormally wet season in Washington. Their colonies are not increasing at the rate they should be. Last year we received Doris on April 24th. This year, the new bees should be closer to the first week of may. Hopefully they arrive before May begins so they can get off to a good start.

Right now, Doris' cluster is roughly the size of a large cantaloupe. She is laying eggs and has plenty of comb to get the spring brood started. This colony will be back to normal size in to time. Hopefully May and June will be much more mild this year than it was the last. I will try to get more pictures for the next post. We all love the pics.

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.

More Custom Accessories

Maybe it is the mechanic in me. I love to modify and customize everything. More performance or a Hot Rod touch, I feel like I need to make everything better. This week, I upgraded the honey super on the top of the hive with an entrance and a landing. I recently read an article that described the use of a 5/8 inch hole for an entrance with a small block for a landing board. The accessory was recommended by a long time beekeeper. The article and the beekeeper's name are nowhere to be found now. I wanted to give credit but I have been searching for four days and can't seem to come across the article again.

Anyway, I decided to try it on Doris' hive to see if it helps the workers get busy with the honey super. It turned out nice. It is small enough for the bees to defend it.

You can barely make out the landing on the front. It is just below the cover. Mom and I are refilling the syrup jars. I like to give them space when I do this now because they get so upset when I mess around at the entrance.

It will be important to figure out how to handle the super now. These bees guard their entrances aggressively. Once they start using this entrance, I am sure they will get mad when I take the hive down again.

Pollen patties are placed here, between the two brood boxes. This puts the protein rich supplement right where the nurse bees can get to it. If the patties are too far from the brood, the bees won't even bother with it. So I do need to take the hive down to feed, at least for a few more weeks.

Next season, I expect this hive will be completely self sufficient. I have been feeding all season to help them build their colony. Come spring time, they might need some help for a couple weeks, but should do just fine on their own. Any new colonies we may start next year will get the same treatments Doris got.

As for winter, I am considering a candy board for feeding, an insulated top (like a quilt box), and wrapping the hive to protect it from wind and cold. These are just the start, we still have six or eight weeks to come up with more ideas for wintering.

Wild Bees

This week, I administered the fourth round of powdered sugar treatment. I simply dumped sugar into the gaps between the frames, as I have been. After I added a pollen patty and put the hive back together, I refilled the sugar syrup. This has been working very well for keeping the bees calm enough to work with. No stings, warnings, or even loud buzzing around the veil.

The temperature was still in the low 90's. Hot sunny days equal happy bees. It has been hot and sunny so long, the flowers have all but dried up. There are some sunflowers and some cone flowers blooming now. There just isn't a lot of flowers available like there was in June and July. I think the syrup and pollen patties are really important right now.

The evening did bring a little bit of cool air through the area. The next day was warm but had severe thunderstorms that hurried through. The bottom board I had installed surely shielded them, at least the underside, from the wind and weather. It was lucky timing, mostly. I checked on them last night after the air cleared. I counted eight mites all together. That is suggested to be a low number for this time of year. Things seem to be going well. The powdered sugar treatment is sufficiently effective.

These two are obviously not part of Doris' colony. I got a chance to get pictures of these cold bees early in the morning. They were waiting for the sun to warm them up. I have been watching closely the flowers along the roadsides to see, not only whats available, but, what is attracting honey bees during this August dearth. This wild sunflower is in full bloom right now and is covered in too many different pollinators to count. I have seen a honey bee here and there, but they are not covered like a Catmint would be. These two are sweat bees that have an emerald green back and yellow stripes. The males would be all green. The metallic color makes these one of my favorite bees.

These wild bees and others like them are in greater danger than honey bees. Wild pollinators, in fact, are capable of much more than a honey bee colony. A single wild bee can visit hundreds of flowers per trip. Pesticides are doing as much damage to wild bees as they are to honey bees. These sweat bees make small nests in tiny holes along flat ground. In my experience, these shiny metal bees are as timid and docile as other sweat bees.

Somebody's Watching Me

These days are too hot for a bee suit. The last couple times I used one, the heat was unbearable. Today, I decided the heat outweighed the stings. I went out in a t-shirt and veil. It was still too hot for comfort.

It has been in the 90's for more than a week with little or no precipitation. Everything is beginning to dry out. This happens every year here. This year it is drying out much later than usual. I have never kept bees before so I am not sure how these weather patterns affect the bees differently. Doris' colony sure seems to love the warm weather.

I changed up my procedure slightly today. I took more time between steps. I went much more slowly. I have said it seemed important to work quickly these days. Turns out that may not be right. Or at least, not the only answer.

Working without a helper, I smoked the hive from the bottom. Slowly, I removed the top and inner covers. I used a little more smoke in the top super. There are hundreds of bees hanging around in the top today. It may be the heat, or that they are beginning work on the frames. There was not enough wax built out to tell for sure. I set the super aside.

I pulled a few frames from the main brood box to have a look. They seem to be drawing honey down the frames and moving the brood pattern slightly lower. Without a helper, I did not get a pic, but it seems they are trying to build both levels as one. They definitely have a large store of nectar started.

Here I got a pic of a couple bees lapping up nectar. They have long pink tongues they use for a lot of different purposes. This burr comb gets built up each week between the upper and lower frames. I have tried to collect all the burr comb I can, whenever I find it.

Sometimes I look back at the boxes and I see dozens of eyes watching me. I think its funny when they do that.

The bottom brood box now has comb working on all frames. The two outermost frames have a very small amount of wax on them but they are being worked. I switched the two outermost frames in one position as I had done with the top brood box. This thing will be full in just a few weeks. There wont be much else to do but build out the comb in the top super.

The bottom box got a heavy dusting of powdered sugar, and a pollen patty. I reset the main brood box and heavily dusted it as well. This is the third week of powdered sugar treatments. I have not been using the bottom board because the weather is so hot, so I am honestly not sure if these treatments are as effective as they have been. I will need to treat, one more time, next week. I can install the bottom board for that day. I will get a good idea of the efficacy at that point.

The brood boxes are full, and bustling with activity. It is going to be difficult to get all the mites out.  I did not have any signs of a mite problem before I began this treatment. I did find some mites inside a brood cell but I did not see any number of them on the bees or on the bottom of the hive. We have been fortunate to not have to resort to using chemicals up to this point. This treatment was primarily preemptive, based on seasonal recommendations I found listed on scientificbeekeeping.com . They also list recommendations for which chemicals to use at different times of the year. That may be helpful later on when our apiary gets harder to manage.

Finally, I buttoned everything up, and gave the bees ample time to settle back into the hive. I used a little more smoke around the busy entrance, and refilled the feeders. Again, working around the entrance got a lot more buzz than the work inside the hive. A couple of guards got loud around my veil. I finished up and left them to their wares.

Dog Days

Doris and her colony continue to build comb everywhere they can. Unfortunately, they do not like to move around and they are sticking frames together, frames to boxes, boxes to covers.... It is amazing to see the work they have done.

The bottom box now has five frames with brood on them. As they fill out the comb, Doris is laying eggs. Everyone is hard at work.

I dusted with powdered sugar again. The workers seemed much more tolerant this time. In fact, the whole inspection went easy because the bees were more calm than they had been. I usually pull the feeders and fill them first. I thought it would help them gorge themselves with food from the smoke. I had noticed they were aggressive when I worked around the entrance.

This time, I left the feeders alone while I took the top off the hive, then the upper boxes. The bees all responded calmly to the use of smoke. There were no guards bumping me or buzzing my head. After I dusted them, they were more concerned about cleaning up than what I was doing.

The dusting created a large crowd at the entrance. When I went to fill the feeders, after the hive was closed back up, I had to use more smoke to make way and disperse the crowd.

Ashlyn got a pic of this bee in mid air, covered in sugar like a ghost bee.

There were storms headed in but not yet in sight. Another hot sunny day with a little breeze, like some in recent weeks. The main difference, I believe, is that we didn't alert the guards as we got started.

The bottom board has had an open screen for the last couple weeks. I pulled the tray out to allow air flow for these dog days of summer. I use these entrance feeders for now because they are convenient for me. These feeders do a good job reducing the entrance. I have been reading that this time of year the flowers dry out and robbing gets more frequent. With hives nearby, Doris' colony is susceptible. The entrance feeders seem to help keep the opening defensible.

I wonder if I had missed some signs that Doris' hive may have been battling robbers. Perhaps that may have been the cause for the increased aggression towards me and the kiddos. I think I will continue to fill the feeders last, and try to develop a new pattern. Hopefully they will remain more calm.

There was a Honey Festival in Parker this weekend. I had some interesting conversations with a few other beekeepers. One thing I found out, is the difference between Italian bees and Carniolan Italian bees. One beekeeper raved about how much more gentle her Carniolan bees were compared to her Italian bees. Another beekeeper and I spoke about a VSH (varroa sensitive hygiene) breed of bees that fight off mites in the brood cells. There are pros and cons to these other options that are worth considering for expanding our apiary next season. The Festival was lots of fun and offered a little about butterflies, gardening, and mead making. We are looking forward to going again next year.


--MAKE SURE YOU SUBSCRIBE TO THE BLOG AND HAVE UPDATES DELIVERED RIGHT TO YOUR INBOX--