Castle Additions

It has been a nice warm sunny day. Mid 80 degree temps, when I showed up to Doris' place to drop off some food, there were bees everywhere. They were crawling around the outside. They were in the top box, beginning to work the frames in the super. They had filled up the slatted rack, and spread out to cover the majority of the last few frames inside the brood box. They have really blown up this last week or so.

I really only stopped by to drop off a pollen patty and refill the syrup. That quart size feeder is lasting only a few days now. There was so much activity, and they were obviously looking for more space, Kyson and I decided to go ahead and add the second deep box under the brood.

We will check them out later this week to see how they're liking it. I may need to move a few things around. I was planning on installing the queen separator to create a false roof over the brood. Right now the inner cover is between the brood box and the super. There were about three small clusters working on those frames this morning (golf ball size groups). They also had a dozen or so individuals wandering around the super. I do eventually hope they fill that super. For now, the goal is to increase bee numbers. I didn't spend much time inspecting. Of what I did see, all still looks well.

The brood box I added had some comb worked out by Deloris when she stayed there. I expect Doris will probably take right off where the others had left it.

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Nine Weeks

It has been nine weeks since these bees were installed. The bees did fine while we were gone on a short trip. When we got back, just five days after topping off the sugar water, the bees had nearly used up all the pollen patty and both quarts of syrup we had left them. At seven days, the syrup was gone. And today, no pollen patty at all. The dry days and eighty degree temps really help them get things done.

The inspection was ideal. They had brood in all stages, perfect egg laying patterns, large areas of hatched brood comb cleaned and reset with fresh eggs, and no signs of beetles or mites. There are no signs of any mites at all! I can't believe there are no mites. I figure I must be missing something but they are clean. I have even, recently, taken pics of each frame, zoomed in, inspected bee by bee, and I have not seen any mites. Skeptics take note, powdered sugar treatment works for me. I am sure mites will eventually reappear. But for now, Doris' bees are happy.

There were only two frames left on the outsides of the box that were not being built out with comb yet. The brood box is nearly full of bees. The second outer most frames had partial comb with only nectar in them so I switched the two outside empty frames in one position. I am hoping this encourages them to build out a little farther.

I am going to give them one more week. Next week I am going to add another Brood box below the one they are in. That should encourage them to continue building and growing downward into the next box.

The use of the slatted rack has definitely made a difference in the utilization of the frames. The first few frames are now completely filled to the corners. Now the bees are building them deeper. They seem to enjoy building burr comb. There is chunks of comb holding the lid down each time I open up the hive now. There is also gratuitous use of propolis. They are trying harder to keep me out and it's probably due to their growing numbers. The bees are now spread out across seven full frames (some are more concentrated than others).

I have been leaving one medium super above the inner cover. It seems to have helped them. It has been functioning as a makeshift quilt box holding the air above them steady. It has empty frames which won't absorb moisture like a quilt box, but they like hanging out in there sometimes and this time of year there is not a lot of condensation anyway.

Long Live the Queen!

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Where's Waldo ( I Spy )

We didn't see Doris during the first inspection the other day. We went back later to find her. Then while I was looking back through the inspection pics, I spotted her right out in the open. She was there the whole time.

Even with her markings she is tough to spot. See if you can find her.

 

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Surprise Inspection

During the initial inspection of the hive, Doris was especially good at hiding from us. So we relaxed, had a nice visit with Scott, rode a dirt bike a little bit, then went back in for a surprise inspection. We got good look at her the second time. She is doing an excellent job. John got a chance to meet her then, too.

Here, Scott is checking the weight of a full brood frame. They are noticeably heavy compared to the empty frames.

Kyson is helping us look for Doris.

Full frames of bees are so much fun to look at. The brood is all in really good condition. No signs of deformed wings. I didn't see any mites hanging on bees. There were no mites on the bottom board. We are still looking good. I hope this continues through the summer.

The workers managed to build some burr comb to stick the inner cover down tight. I took the hint and promised not to open the hive again during any rains.

I pulled the small feeder and left two quarts of sugar syrup. The new front porch fit perfectly. I hope that slatted rack spacer serves them well. Perhaps, Doris might even fill in those empty corners now they are further from the door.

A half dozen or so bees did end up squished by that pollen patty a few days ago. Not too many, but it was sad and unnecessary considering there were no storms the next day. We had some light showers that were not even close to what was in the forecast Thursday.

They have collected a complete frame of stored nectar. In combination with the syrup and patty I have provided, that will be enough to get them through much of the summer rains.

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Surprisingly Sunny

Well, as I have said before, the forecast is more often wrong than right. Today, the clouds cleared, it warmed up and it began to dry out. I didn't have much to do but I decided I better just let the bees be bees for today.

Kyson and I rolled down to Lowes to waste some time. I found some lemongrass plants I had to have. While pokin' around their scrap bins, I found a nice piece of 3/4 inch plywood. FREEBEE! Now it is a slatted bottom board for Doris' hive.

We will have to try to get it installed this weekend.

I have read a lot about these slatted spacers. They offer many benefits to the hive year 'round. Beekeepers who use them swear by them. I am hoping it will help keep the winds away from the frames, and some of the moisture below the brood.

This design will keep the frames elevated an extra two inches above the entrance. The wide shelf at the front channelizes the atmosphere away from the bottom of the frames keeping the queen, brood, and bee cluster warmer and drier. The added space below gives larger crowds someplace to hang out when it gets hot around the brood cluster and effectively helps the bees manage the hive temperature. Also, the slats act as a bottom to the hive, preventing burr comb in the open space, but allow mites and debris to fall through to the screen bottom.

I am excited to offer this accessory to Doris. I believe every little bit will help.

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Rain, Rain, Go Away

After a busy week, full of rain storms, baseball, work, and errands, Doris' colony has used up all of the sugar syrup and pollen patty. I needed to feed the bees but the rain is relentless. Rain is in the forecast for the next few days. There was no choice, we have to take a chance. I had to get them more syrup and pollen patty.

Ashlyn held the umbrella over the hive, blocking both the wind and the rain. I lifted the top just far enough to slide the pollen patty in. The bees were all over the tops of the frames and there's a chance a few may have been hurt. I installed a fresh jar of sugar syrup. I added it to the other two feeders that were already installed. I also filled those two feeders. There is now three jars of syrup in entrance feeders. The opening is only about a half inch wide now, which should help with the cold temps and damp winds. The bees will still have room to get in and out if the sun does shine during the next couple days.

There were no signs of beetles in the usual spots around the feeders and in the entrance. There are also no mites on the bottom board. This is very positive to see. We are still just waiting for some warm dry weather to come through so the colony can really take off.

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New Inspection

Today there was a window in the daily thunderstorms. Just before the weather turned, we opened the hive to see what progress was made.

There was a lot of activity outside the hive.

This whole frame is all nectar. There is another frame of nectar that is about two thirds full. They are working hard at expanding.

 Doris is working away. She is laying eggs across three frames. This is also the first picture of Doris with her tiny blue marking. It makes all the difference in locating her during inspections.

 Two of the brood frames are almost full to the corners.

 There is new brood in the cells that have already been hatched out.

 Bottom left to top right, you can see the larvae in different stages.

The bottom board had only a couple mites. They were the first I have seen in about two weeks. I did spot one bee with deformed wings (a developmental deformation caused by the mites). So, I dusted with powdered sugar and I will check them again in a few days to see how many mites drop to the bottom board.

There was no sign of any beetles. The colony has plenty of pollen stores, nectar, pollen patty, and sugar syrup. They seem to be healthy and growing in spite of the bad weather.

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Kool Aid

It just dawned on me. A gallon of water, excessive amounts of sugar, and essential oils (flavoring) = Kool Aid for bees.

 

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Downward Spiral/The Numbers Game

It was shortly after the cold snap and snow fall from Mother's day when I discovered devastating losses in Delores' hive. The bees in that hive could not handle the swing in temperature and conditions. I had seen a few mites in the bottom board of both hives. It did not occur to me previous that such a low mite count would have affected that colony. I knew there were some dead bees in the package. In my inexperienced estimate, Delores was down to roughly 1500 workers after that storm. I had also read initial numbers drop before they begin increasing. Rain and cold weather persisted. There were many more bees lost. At the end of the first three weeks, I noticed some of the brood beginning to hatch. I looked very closely at the mite count. 8 to 12 mites is kinda high for the springtime. Then it dawned on me. 10 to 12 is high for a full hive of bees. We have maybe a thousand bees in this box. They were too stressed and week from the parasites that they couldn't survive the cold weather. They spent too much energy trying to keep a brood box warm and couldn't spare the time to break away for a snack. They easily starved themselves to death.

I began dusting with powdered sugar. This had an immediate effect on the mites. I still have extremely low counts on Doris' hive after a few treatments. Powdered sugar is an effective mite control for our purposes. Delores' mites were also very low. Unfortunately, her worker bees were also very low. To help with the evening chills, I made a four frame nuc box and moved Delores in to ease the stress of managing the space within her hive. This maneuver  also had an immediate effect. The workers became much more active. They seemed to be relieved in their smaller, more efficient space. Within minutes, they were moving more energetically around the frames, less focused on warming the brood and more focused on getting some work done.

A mere three days later, disaster struck. At some point in that three days, an invasion of beetles moved in. Deloris did not have the numbers to battle the dozens of pillagers that moved into the nuc box. She and the workers cleaned up as much of the meager stores they had, and they abandoned the hive in search of something safer. Farewell to Delores.

All that was left in the box was some abandoned brood and a lot of beetles. I checked Doris to make sure she was okay. She was hard at work. Her numbers steadily increasing. She too had beetles. Doris had plenty of help around to keep those beetles under control. I swept away all the beetles I could find. Then I placed the abandoned comb from the other hive into Doris' brood box so they could spread out a little more easily. I topped off her sugar water and left her the rest of Delores' pollen patty.

Today I stopped by to check on the beetle count. The twenty or so beetles they had cornered at the entrance yesterday were nowhere to be found. I inspected everything very closely. No signs of any beetles at all. In three days, the beetles drove out the bees from one hive. 24 hours later, gone without a trace. The more frequently the hives are inspected, I think, the better control can be had on the pests. I have been looking into beetle traps. It seems, for now, close inspections are most important to control the beetles.

The mites also need to be closely checked. Currently, Doris' hive drops from 1 to 3 mites a day. I don't feel like this is a high number for the 5 to 6 thousand bees I'm guessing we have in there right now (that number may be optimistic but that colony is growing daily).

When I moved the other hive into the nuc box, we inspected Doris and found two workers with deformed wings. After all the problems with the other hive, I quickly began shopping for mite control. Fortunately, there was only one form readily available and it risked killing the queen (and it was high priced). I decided to wait until after a couple more inspections. I have not found any, at all, other bees with deformed wings. The mite counts continue to be very small. Those two girls may possibly have been from the initial brood when the mite counts were higher.

I will continue to avoid using chemicals in the hives as long as I can. I plan to continue to manually remove beetles and treat mites with powdered sugar until more drastic measures are needed. With only one hive, this should not be too demanding.

Today, I noticed bees working most of the comb left behind by the other hive. It even seemed like they were caring for some of the abandoned brood. Perhaps not all was lost when Delores swarmed.

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New House

Since Delores' colony is so small. She needed a more efficient place to stay. Yesterday, because it was stormy all day, again, I threw together a 4 frame nuc box to move Delores into. By the time I got there this morning, it was already low 50's and bees were buzzing everywhere. Lisa and the kids wandered around watching the bees in the flowers hard at work.

Sunshine and warm, its a bee-a-utiful day. The forcasters haven't even been in the same state all month long, it seems.

We moved the frames that had comb and brood into the nuc box. Then we stole a partial frame of brood and some stores, and added it to the nuc.

Doris had so much going on in her hive, she didn't notice one frame missing. We dusted Doris with sugar. The mite counts are looking really low. There was a scare of deformed wing virus in Doris' hive on Friday. But, a closer inspection today proved there was no real threat.

In the new box, acivity from Deloris' crew ramped up considerably. I found a few flaws in the design of my box. They shouldn't be problems for the bees, but I can make adjustments to it when that colony moves back out in a few weeks.

Oh yeah, that nuc box was completely free. I made it out of leftover wood and scraps from my garage. The paint was donated by John (Thanks John).

Sun's shining. Things are looking up.
 

 

 

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Rain's Comin'

Stopped off to check the hives this evening. I laid a blanket over the hive to crack them open so the wind would not get inside. Bees look like they are doing what they need to. There are no recently deceased in Delores' hive. Mite counts are down. I moved the pollen patty directly over the cluster. There is plenty of syrup in both feeders to last the next few days.

The forecast is for cold wind and rain for the next 14+ hours. Nighttime temps will be getting into the mid 30's for a couple days after that. Then more rain... This spring has not been ideal for bee colonies.

I wrapped both hives. First, in a moving pad for insulation, then in plastic to keep some rain off the pad.

I was careful to leave space for bees to get in and out. The wind cannot blow directly into the hive. With the cold wind blowing at about 15mph, there was nothing flying outside. I am sure they were all nestled in.

These wraps will come off quickly as soon as the weather turns. I may re-install them if I need to when these types of systems move in. At least up until the boxes fill with bees.

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Bee Battles

I was asked when I might open up the entrances to the hives. Right now they are only about 5/8 of an inch wide. My response was simple. I'll open them when the numbers of bees increases. Today, we saw a violent struggle at the entrance to Delores' hive. A robber that tried to get in was excused by four bees, like bouncers at a club. One of the bouncers fought the intruder all the way to the ground. They wrestled in the grass until the robber gave up and got away.

I got stung. Doris' bees are getting more brave. While I held a frame, one of the workers was able to sneak up to my finger on the back side of the frame. We were looking at some larvae that were about 4 or 5 days old. She stung my finger tip right under the nail. WOW! it REALLY Hurt! I managed to hold onto the frame even though they did not want me to.

As for the sick bees, I inspected the carcasses very closely. There was no obvious signs of nosema. I spent last night researching what may have been the cause for the losses. Ultimately, it looks to be due to cold and starvation. It happened much quicker than I imagined. In less than a week, the bees were confined to their cluster and unable to reach the food sources I provided them. The Boardman feeder was just out of reach for the tiny group that just kept getting smaller. Also, the hive was spread out too far for them to keep it warm.
So what I did today, dusted for mites using powdered sugar, lowered the inner cover to just above the brood cluster, moved the pollen patty directly over the brood cluster refilled one of the feeding cans from the packages and installed it directly over the brood cluster, and rechecked the bottom for more bee losses. No newly deceased (nosema infection might still be causing them to die). Now, the bee cluster should have a stress free evening no matter how cold it gets.

As for the battle against mites, I counted Doris' today and the 24 hour drop count is 12. I have read some suggestions there should be less than ten in the spring time. Sugar treatments should bring our small colonies into that range so I dusted both hives today. I will continue to dust them each week through the spring and summer.

Doris' colony is increasing daily now. She has three frames full of bees. It will be overflowing in no time. Hopefully, Delores can pull her colony out of this slump.


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Doing Well. Not Great.

First opportunity to open the hives in eight days. Over the last week, there has been high winds, daily afternoon thunderstorms, below freezing nights, barely 50 degree days, and a snow storm that dumped eight inches and melted off the next day. These bees have been through a lot for one week. The queens, now marked with blue dots, are still working hard. There are signs that brood is hatching (Maybees? ha ha).

Doris is strong and numbers seem to be increasing. There is fresh eggs, larvae, capped brood, and open cells where bees have emerged. This hive will likely have to carry all the weight this season.

Deloris did not fare the cold snap well. She started out with slightly fewer bee numbers. Now there are so few, I am concerned she may not recover at all.

 This frame shows a few spots of feces. There is dysentery streaking on the front of the hive. The bottom also has signs of dysentery.

You can see there is barely enough bees to cover the comb that is already built. There is brood on only three sides of two frames.

They have pollen. There were foragers moving in and out of the hive, just not many. They ran out of sugar water and did not have any honey stored. Starvation may have been a key factor in their demise over the last week.

There seems to be more dead bees in the bottom screen than there were on the frames. That is a heartbreaking sight to see.

I will need to check the dead for signs of nosema diseases. I am also going to dust them with sugar to help out with some of these mites. I moved the pollen patty directly over the brood. I am also going to add a feeder directly over them so they do not have to break their cluster to get to the sugar water.

Forecast is calling for more afternoon thunderstorms for the next ten days, and probably for weeks to come. The freezing temperatures have subsided for now.

I will be out again today to do some more cleanup in Delores' hive.

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The Value of Freebies

I was adding a few items to the blog today. I realized there is quite a few items that would cost a lot of money when you add it all up. Here's kind of a summary of the things that didn't come right out of pocket for this new adventure.

First of all the hive stands, I was able to collect some used lumber, clean the old nails out of it, then cut it to size. I nailed them together with some generic nails I had in the garage. Sure, we could have found something to stack the hives on to get them off the ground. Stands help keep them higher and drier? If we didn't have the tools to use, we would have paid, possibly, a hundred dollars, or more, for the pair. We saved at least about twenty bucks on wood or cinder blocks as a stand.

Paint was another savings. Using a leftover gallon of exterior paint as a base coat saved us the added expense of purchasing everything finished. A gallon of exterior paint is running right at twenty bucks now. The brushes I used would have cost another four or five.

The Beek down the street offered to share some of the nutrient he had left over. Yes, Beek is short for beekeeper. I didn't make it up. The ingredients would have cost eighteen dollars, or so. A bottle of it from a supplier would have been more.

We did get several accessories along with our hives. Plan Bee threw in a screened bottom board, entrance reducer, entrance feeder, a j-hook style hive tool, and even a bee brush when we purchased the hives. I also cut a few more scrap wood pieces to make an entrance block-off and a reducer that would fit in with the feeder. All these items would nickel and dime a beekeeper until they gave up. 

Then there is a suit. I just used a pair of coveralls I already had. You could get one like it for nine dollars at the hardware store. If you would rather have the canvas beekeepers uniform with pockets and all, it would cost seventy dollars. Doris and Delores have some pretty docile colonies. I don't see needing to spend that much on a suit. Gloves and fancy veils run up the costs from there. 

All in all, I think we are doing pretty well, cost wise. I estimate we have started two hives for what it would probably have cost us to start one. Granted, It could have been even cheaper to start only one. It would have been half as much fun too. I will remain on the lookout for deals and steals when it comes to adding supers and other accessories. I have some ideas brewing for overwinter. That's a discussion for another day.

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Photo Shoot

These queens turned out to be very photogenic. We used cardboard in the smoker and it made a huge difference. The cardboard was easier to light, and made more consistent smoke. Temps in the 70's and mild winds. Once again there was a ton of activity in and out of the hive.

 Notice in this shot, how much bigger my finger is than bees. Just Kidding.

 You can see Delores, lots of eggs, pollen cells, and jelly filled brood cells. There is even a bee there delivering a fresh load of pollen. Too bad I didn't have a paint pen to mark her with.

 TRAGEDY STRIKES!!! I dropped the frame with the queen on it. I quickly grabbed the smoker and smoked the frame. Then I carefully picked up the frame. Delores was fine. She stayed on the frame but she was certainly not happy. What a bonehead rookie mistake. We closed up this hive as quickly as possible. Ashlyn wasn't supposed to get a picture of this but I guess it falls into the "challenges of keeping bees" category. Lesson learned.

Here is Doris. She has lots and lots of eggs. I held on to this frame with two hands and so we had more time to inspect the work they were doing. We got to see capped brood cells and developing larvae that were not in the picture. There will be lots of new bees from this hive in a few weeks.

In Doris' hive, we found a piece of burr comb built out from one of the frames. We cut that chunk out and spaced out the frames a little better so they didn't build out again. I noticed later that the burr comb actually had eggs in it. The bees had not begun filling these egg cells with jelly yet. Its is a very interesting find.

Thankfully, no stings; Even with all the angry bees. Now I just hope they don't give up on me and swarm because they don't like being dropped.

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Checking In

Today I had to go refill the feeders on the hives. I went during the nice, warm, sunny part of the day. There was tons of activity going on around the hives. I had some trouble getting the smoker to lite. The pellets are a little harder to use than I had hoped. I ended up burning a lot of pine needles and grass. There was just enough of a breeze to blow the smoke right back out of the hive. I managed to get inside despite all the troubles. Gotta take a stinger at some point, I figured.

Here are some of the girls carrying in their loads of pollen. There were several different colors of pollen being brought into both hives.

The bees are working three frames. Doris keeps her hive very clean. I opened both so I could clean out the bottom boards of dead bees from the cold snap the other day. While Doris had already dealt with the housekeeping, Delores' bottom board was a huge mess. There were still many leftover bees. There was honey everywhere.

The folks at Plan Bee were generous enough to offer a frame of drawn comb full of honey to kick off these hives. They suggested splitting that frame of honey for the two hives. This loosened the honey and made a gigantic mess. The resulting honey mess saturated the bottom board. I dumped the wax, honey and bees off the bottom board and screen. I'm sure the bees will clean the remaining mess in time.

Interestingly, I found a bunch of sawdust all over the bottom of both hives. Its as if there is a crew of worker bees sanding away on the fresh cut lumber of these brand new hives.

 There are glimpses of pollen being stored in these cells.

This side of the frame looks like its being prepared for eggs. No sign of Doris in these pics. This frame was pulled from the edge of the cluster. Doris was probably in the center.

I did not prepare enough sugar water to fill the feeders completely. I am going to have to go back out this weekend and top them off for the week ahead. All signs are positive. They are officially off and running.

Today's lessons: Don't apply scraped honey to a new frame. It makes too much of a mess.
And: Smoker pellets are more trouble than they're worth.

Another good thing; no stings yet.

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The Queens are Out

This even we had temps in the high 50's. It had been in the 60's during the day. Sunny, and calm, it was a good day to open the hive and look at the queen boxes. The marshmallows were gone, and the queens were off and running. The workers were all bunched up on the frames. That's where the queen must be so I pulled out the package and began replacing frames.

I moved the bee clusters to the center. I added some honey and wax to a couple frames and put them in next to the bee clusters. As I scraped the original frame to divide it amongst the hives, I ended up covering three sides of the clean frames. The honey made a huge mess. Luckily there is a large team of workers to clean it all up.
Until today, the bees didn't have any honey. I decided not to smoke the bees, since they wouldn't be able to gorge themselves on honey. When I started moving the frames around, they started getting angry. I am still not used to angry bees yet. It is nice to have the protection of the veil and coveralls.

The tin can in Delores's hive was empty. The bees had consumed half the syrup in the jar already too. Doris's team didn't do quite as well with the can but they made quite a dent in the pollen patty. Both hives got after the honey right off.

One concerning item, there was a lot of dead bees on the bottom screen. There were some that were moving slowly but it was kind of alarming to see how many were lost.
There are still many bees to care for Doris and Delores. Each hive had roughly three full frames covered in bees. I saw good activity outside the hive too. Doris looked like she may have had a little bit bigger of a family.

I couldn't find either of the queens, but the clusters were reassuring. Overall, they were busy working hard.

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Coincidentally

Turns out, the first grade class happens to be studying pollination. In the past, Ms. Jill's class would inspect bees, flowers, pollen, etc. Each of the kids took home a bee of their own. Apparently this year the supply of bees for the lesson was not high quality. They ended up with only one specimen to demonstrate pollination.

I found these stragglers from the other day. They were soaking wet, still, and lifeless. We collected them from the ground into a jar so we could offer them to the first graders. Before we got home, we were amazed to see that most of the bees had awakened.
The most amazing thing was the way they clustered in the jar. The first few that started moving huddled around the others and licked them and groomed each other until more and more woke up and began helping. Within an hour, 35 of the 50 bees were dry and lively, working to revive the remaining. Those cold bees I glimpsed earlier will undoubtedly be just fine. These creatures are astonishing.

The advise I received from a neighboring beekeeper was very reassuring. He told me he had experienced cold bees. He said they always wake up when they thaw out. When they say every beehive is different, every beekeeper's methods are different, it's because no one can prepare for what will happen once they get their bees. The classes can't demonstrate the weather. The books cannot express the intensity of the sounds. You Tube won't even touch on the way the bees behave. I am looking forward to seeing all the different colors the bees create from the variety of wild forage in the area, as the neighbor suggested, there's a lot going on within the hive.
He also mentioned there's not too much to worry about along the lines of infestation and infection with our area. I think I will take his advice and monitor the colony diligently before unnecessarily subjecting them to excessive mite treatments and medications. Its nice to have some experience close by to help out.

This was only day 3. Awesome.

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Named.

We have names. The north hive is headed by Queen Delores. The south hive is is lead by Queen Doris.

Thank you to Lisa for coming up with those names.

If anyone has any ideas for queen names, save them for the successors.

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The Forcast is Always Wrong

The one thing you can always count on in Colorado is that the forcast will always be wrong. Today it was wrong in the worst way for bees. It's rainy, windy, and 42 degrees. It has been raining all night and everything is soaked, thoroughly. I had hoped to be able to open the hive possibly between showers. Now it looks like I won't be able to open them until tuesday.

I did open the entrances to the hives.  Maybe if it gets a little warmer they can start exploring. I noticed there was a lot of water around the entrances. So I cracked the top open and peeked to make sure it was all dry inside. It looked good. The bees inside were still but not stiff. Now I am hoping they survive this cold snap.

I am worried having the package in this long will allow the queen to move into the package instead of the frames. Hopefully this cold prevents them from building comb and from freeing the queen. At least long enough to let me get the frames put back in like they should be.

Oh well. This is the first lesson in keeping bees, I guess. The neighbor/Apiarist reassured me they have a survival mode and we should be just fine.

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New Family

Here's a couple pics of a gal hangin' out on the spare frames.

Here is some of the stragglers. They are looking for their sisters.

There is a GIANT BEE behind the feeder! Watch Out!

I crack myself up...

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Welcome Home Honey Bees!

So last night I received an email that said the bees are in a day early. All the better because weather is supposed to move in this weekend and could make it tough to install the bees if it rains.

We drove up to get the bees. Once again, Plan Bee was very generous, and gracious, considering the millions of bees they had in, and around, their place. The noise was amazing. There were, what seemed like, crowds of bees in the air.

Here's a few of the hundreds of bee packages they had.

The bees and their new homes. We placed the hives about 50 feet apart to install the bees and allow them to get used to their new hive. They will be placed next to each other in a month or so.

Inspecting the north colony. We got the hive ready by removing some frames, and filling the entrance feeders before we let the bees out. The sugar water spray helped out quite a bit. It didn't really seem to bother them much but it definitely made it hard for them to buzz around. There were plenty that still made it airborne.

The old guys were unafraid. The first package I opened, I tried not to shake the bees, bang the package, or be otherwise rude. It didn't go well. When I grabbed the queen box, they got really upset and buzzed loudly. I gave them a shot of sugar water but there were a few that were too mad. It got kinda hairy for a second. I had to step back. The loud buzzing makes it hard to trust the veil.

 Her Highness. Both queens were unmarked. Neither queen box had a candy plug.

I was prepared. I brought mini marshmallows. I even brought enough for Ashlyn [who was the photographer].

I carefully plugged the exit. She was very interested in getting out of the box.

Here's a few workers exploring the new digs. They started getting into that brood patty before I even had the queen installed.

Still not into shaking bees, I placed the package into the hive. All you can see is the tiny aluminum tab from the queen.

 Bees for the south hive.

 Opening the package.. I sprayed them first. This time I decided to knock the package on the table one time. It made all the difference. A second shot of sugar spray, they didn't know what happened to even get mad about it. Thankfully Hailey built a work table that is durable enough to stand up to the abuse.

 This queen gets a marshmallow.

 These bees are all in the bottom of the package. Much easier to manage that way. I still don't want to be rude so I'm not going to shake these either.

 Both brood boxes got an inner cover.

 I placed the package feeders above the brood box. The more food available the better, right?

Empty super around it.

Home sweet home. At least for a day or two. We will go back in on Sunday to remove the package, replace the brood frames, and add a frame of capped honey. While I'm in there, I'll see if the marshmallow has been eaten at all, and if the queen is doing well.

Then, we'll open up the entrance to the hive so they can get to work. We left it closed up so the workers can get used to their new queen. We don't want anyone trying to fly back to Montana to find their old queen.

The weather today was in the mid 60's, and breezy. It was gusty when we arrived with the bees. The wind seemed to let up just long enough to install the bees. It was mostly cloudy. Thunderstorms rolled through parts of the metro area later in the afternoon.

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