Bee Whisperer

Today was one of those day dreamy days in a person's life. One of those days where you bear witness to something so beautiful and rare, so special and precious that your breath is gone and letters do not make up adequate words to describe what is unfolding in front of you. You forget to pick up your camera and take pictures of the things that are now held captive in your mind for all the rest of your days. You just hold your breath and wish for it to go on forever.

I took my grandson Seth to see the bees today. I dressed him in the little jacket that was still too big for him (a gift Les Hiltz), tucked his pants in his socks, pulled a net over his Angry Birds cap and fitted him with some gloves. I told him, if the bees seemed happy to see him we could take off the veil and gloves.

What follows is what I can't put into words.

Seth was well received by the hive. He stood in awe for a few moments and then slowly sat down at the hive entrance. For the next 30 minutes he whispered to and petted bees.

Enjoy, this one's on me.
Karen

Finding the Queen, or Not - a follow-up

Better late than never right?

In my previous post you may have recalled we were going on a queen hunt. Well we suited up, scoured the hive and did not find her. What we did find were fewer bees than we had anticipated AND a whole bunch of capped queen cells.

What we think has happened is this: we missed a swarm. We missed the old queen's exit with her share of ladies in waiting. They are probably happily setting up new quarters near by in a hollow tree. What remains in our hive are about half of the bees we started with and new queens waiting to emerge and claim the hive. This sets us back a bit.

The hive was super unfriendly. I took three hits to my finger and a sting up my pants leg (and never mind where that sting ended up at) The day before Kris took a hit from the same hive and had a welt on her leg that Bill described as looking like a veal cutlet.  There was honey in the bottom deep. Not a ton of brood and then the queen cells. Further inspection showed about the same in the second deep and there was little to no activity in the supers.

We decided to check the other hives. Again, no queen, honey capped and uncapped in the deeps and capped queen cells in both. Fantastic. What to do? Once a colony has decided to swarm there is little to do about it. We discussed the clipping of the queen but she may try to fly anyhow and land on the ground and then what? Or if we clip her the hive could decide that she is weak or broken and raise a new queen anyhow and kill her off. Either way we are behind.

I called Les. I wondered if we could buy an empty nuc out. After conferring for 20 mins he suggested that because we had capped honey in the bottom that we were probably having a nectar run. The bees were storing the honey in any empty comb. Since the supers were not drawn out yet they were using the deep. The queen, feeling she was crowded now had quit laying eggs and the hive had decided she was failing sooooo....deep breath...making a replacement.

Complicated this bee psychology.

Kris and Bill went out the next night. Rotated a few frames and now our fingers are crossed. And our toes. And our eyes. All I know for certain at this point is bees will do what bees will do.

Peace,
Karen

Rising From the Ashes - Burning Down the House

Capped Honey

Well I've been a little preoccupied with a wedding. My son wed his best friend on Saturday! Congrats Steven and Emily.

The fact that I had a wedding does not mean the bees have been neglected. Kris has been a diligent bee-keeper and checks them daily. All the hives have been behaving, well, until last Thursday when this report came in from Kris:

I went down to look at the bees tonight. Lyle told me that if I saw bees crawling up the hive before taking off, they were stealing honey and preparing a swarm. They climb the box before take off to get the extra lift they need due to the extra weight of the honey. Well, I saw bees doing that on the Phoenix hive. So, I took off the lid, and holy-moly the Phoenix has risen. This hive didn't have any supers on it.
So, I suited up, grabbed a queen excluder and a super and went in. Their were queen cups on the bottom of several center frames. There were also drone cells. The second brood box was full. I scraped off the queen cups, no capped queen cells, and the drone cells. They were pretty angry and I had no smoke, so I didn't look for the queen. I also didn't look for eggs/larvae b/c it was obvious she has been laying by the amount of bees. So I just smushed what need to be smushed and put the excluder and super on.
Lyle and the Dudist looked fine. Some bees above the excluder, but still drawing out comb.

Good enough. As aptly named the Phoenix hive has risen. Yay bees.

Then today, while I was at work. This message came from Kris:

Bee emergency!!!!
Sealed queen cells in Lyle's hive. I scraped them off. Definitely swarm cells. Bees very agitated. I got stung. (I was in a t-shirt and flip flops. My own damn fault) Bees were very agitated. Not much going on above queen excluder, so I went into top deep. Bees did not want me in there. Now I know why. So, I need my bee bitches to come look. I did not see evidence of egg/larvae?? Maybe they need a new queen? Maybe I shouldn't have done that? I need to call for a meeting? I leave for a week out of town on Sunday.

Let me explain as simply as possible - THIS IS BAD!

A phone call later, the plan is to go in at 8 am tomorrow morning and hunt down our queen. At this point we don't know what is going on. We have narrowed it down to one of two things a) we have a failing queen or a dead queen  or b) they just want to swarm.  If we find our queen we are going to make a grab for her and clip a wing. The reason for this is to keep her from flying off with half of the hive. We also need to look at brood pattern, eggs and larva to determine if we even have a queen in the event we don't find her. This may be why we have queen cells; they are trying to make a new queen.

Gaaa. It's all so confusing!

I hope we find the queen. This would ease Kris' mind. See, she scraped off some queen cells today and is now concerned that if we don't have a queen she may have complicated things. Plus, to add insult to injury she has been stung on the thigh and has a rather large welt from our very aggressive hive. There seems to be no lack of things to concern new bee-keepers. Or maybe it's how it is with all bee-keepers? I don't know. Anyhow, here we are, as ever, confused and going to school on the bees. One hive rising from the ashes and the other trying to burn itself down. 

Peace,
Karen

Naming the Hives

I miss our bees. Oh no! We haven't lost them. It's just we haven't needed to go in and do anything with them since the dronectomy. Kris has been checking the hive and had this report on the 29th:

I picked up three drawn out supers. I checked the hives tonight. Lyle's hive is doing just fine. Bees still very busy working the deep/super we put on last Friday. I next checked the Phoenix hive. Just fine. Bess still in the center of the second deep. The Dudist hive, however, had bees all the way out to the outer frames. So, I put a queen excluder on and our first super. I used one with drawn out comb. Electric fence working fine. I have been checking regularly. I am targeting June 9 for the next delve into the hive? 

So, your next question is probably what is she talking about? Lyles hive, Phoenix hive, Dudist hive? Lemme do some 'splainin.  We named our hives.

Let's start with the Dudist hive. This hive is our most laid back hive. It has a real Zen quality about it. You open it and the bees are like the scene from the Big Lebowski where he's all peaceful in the bathtub with whale music on. They seem to say, "Aggression will not stand, man."

Next is the Phoenix hive. We worry over this hive. It's our smallest hive and seems to struggle. Yet we think, no believe, it can rise like a Phoenix and be a great producing hive. This is the only hive we have where we have not seen our queen. Still, eggs and larva are present and they are building up into the second super. We have faith in this one.

Then there is Lyle's hive. We call it Lyle's because it came from Lyle Robinson, another local bee guy who is a wealth of knowledge and teasing. The other two hives came from Mann Lake. It's easy to tell Lyle's hive apart from the other two because it is painted a light blue-green. Plus, like Lyle, it gives us a little grief each time we visit it. This is our most aggressive hive and the one that "sends us to school" on a regular basis.

Each time we go into the hive we log what is going on inside that hive. We chart how the bees behaved, if we saw the queen, eggs and larva. We log brood pattern, pollen and honey stores and if we see disease or predators. We will use this information in future years for comparison and hopefully as a predictor of what we should watch for and when so we may be proactive.

Sunday is our next foray into the hives. It will be good to see the "Ladies" and get some bee therapy. Our weather has been cool and wet. Flowers are everywhere and it is my hope that the weather warms so our bees can get out and do what they do best.

Peace,
Karen