More Problems than Pictures

Ask two bee-keepers a question and you'll get three different answers.

The problem? Mostly amateur beekeepers and our big super hive aka Lyle's hive. It has a lot of bees and apparently not enough work. Kris and I were on our own today for hive inspection. Bill was out on the soccer field with grade school kids. (Another kind of problem all together) All went well until our last hive, Lyle's, which we always save for last.

A week or so ago we put a second deep on that hive because it was so big. Our theory was give them more to do and reduce the risk of a swarm. Just so you know, swarm is good and bad. Good if you catch it because you get another hive of bees for free. Bad if you don't because you lose 50 - 70% of a hive which will not be able to recover enough to produce your honey for fall.

Kris and I cracked Lyle's hive. The top deep had new drawn out comb in the center which was good. But the big question was...do we check the bottom deep or not? *cricket, cricket, cricket* I voted for yes. Kris was with me on it. But if we remove the top deep and the queen was in it and she fell out because we set it down and we didn't know?.....*cricket, cricket, cricket* So, the plan went like this: set the hive lid upside down, take the top deep and  it in the lid so if the queen did fall out we could collect her and reinsert her.

We were pretty proud of ourselves and were feeling really bee-keepy at that point. Then it all went to hell. We pulled the first frame of the bottom deep, then the second. The bottom of the second frame was pendulous with drone cells, half of which we had ripped open when we extracted the frame. Big fat drone larva oozed out. We were mortified. A look down into the hive bottom revealed more drone cells attached from the bottom of the frame to the bottom of the hive. Houston, we have a problem, but what kind and to what extent?

Kris ran for her phone. We got one of the bee-boyfriends on the line he gave us some options - vent the hive, let cool air in, make them think "Tornado" which will distract them from swarm behavior and buy you time because they sound like they are gonna swarm and they will to it at 10 in the morning so be there to watch  and catch your swarm and you will need another hive to put them in....or....you can split your hive. Make them think they actually did it themselves but you will need another hive and another queen. He suggested we go to a website and watch a video on how to split a hive.

We vented the hive, gathered our tools and did the only thing we knew to do - we went to the house and opened a bottle of wine. There we watched a video and decided to call the other bee-boyfriend who said, "Oh just scrape those drone cells off. All droned do is eat and take up space. You don't need them they are beetle magnets."

We felt better after hearing this. We had another glass of wine. Then bee-boyfriend number one called back with different advice: put another deep on top to give them more to do. They will forget about swarmning. Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.....

So, you will forgive me tonight if there are no awesome pictures of our bees. Trust when I say they were magnificent and we didn't get stung twice in a row. We think we have a plan for tomorrow at 6 and there may be pics then. For now, however, we have more problems than pictures and clearly not enough wine to go around.

Peace,
Karen