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.


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