Bee-ginner Beekeeper

I Have A Queen!!

2009-06-29T19:24:00.002-04:00

Saturday, June 27, 2009 - My friend and mentor Randy came over and we broke into my hive. I have 2 full deeps as brood supers. I took off the top one, set it aside and immediately started to remove frames from the bottom box. The second frame we took out had uncapped brood in the correct places to know that the queen is laying. Like the last time there was plenty of capped brood and Randy said that within a week or so most of them would be emerging. Yay! There was also uncapped brood on a few other frames.
Dissapointingly, the girls have not really touched the frames in the top box. I continue to feed them 1:1 syrup in the hopes that they will start to draw more comb. Randy suggested that I thin the syrup out a little to make them think it's more like nectar. I will try that next time I replace the syrup.
Later on he called me and said maybe I should remove the top box as they have hardly touched it. I reminded that there will be alot of bees emerging soon and I was worried that they would all be too crowded in just on brood box. He agreed and said to wait and see how many bees there were after the capped brood comes out.
I surmise that I will not be getting any surplus honey this year as the nectar flow is almost finished but I will be overjoyed if my girls overwinter successfully.
The saga continues. Sorry for no pics but next time I promise I will take some.

More to come.....Bee well.

Still Very Wet Weather

2009-06-14T10:13:00.003-04:00

Well, I was unable to crack the hive this weekend as it rained on all my available days (for me that means Thursday, Friday and Saturday). I will try again on Thursday, June18, if conditions permit. I have yet to see what the bees have done with the 2nd brood super I have placed on top and I will again try to locate her highness or at least see eggs and/or brood. I don't know what to think because of all this rain.
More to Come.....Bee Well...

Rain, Rain Go Away

2009-06-07T11:27:00.004-04:00

I so much wanted to go in and look for her royal highness this weekend (to me that means Thurs, Fri and Saturday) but rain and other issues prevented me from doing so. Maybe thats best as I know noobs go into the hive much too often. The girls seem content and Saturday they were out and flying. I will now have to wait until at least Thursday 6/11 when I hear rain is predicted. I will wait until a nice sunny, warm day and venture in. I was told to no longer look for the queen as the hive has too many bees so I will remember to look for eggs.
More to come.....Bee well.

What Does This Mean?

2009-06-01T11:02:00.005-04:00

About 9PM on May 31st I walked down to the hive. The air was decidedly cool and I saw this group of bees clustered by the entrance. Does anyone know what they were doing? The day before I added a new brood box above this one but I do not know the significance of this or if is important at all.

More to come.....Bee well.

Population Explosion!!

2009-05-31T11:15:00.005-04:00

On Friday, May 30 I looked outside my window at my lone, honeydew colored hive and saw masses of bees climbing the front of the hive and a cloud of them surrounding the hive. I ran down to look more closely and saw more bees than I have seen before at the hive. I was excited to say the least! I waited for Saturday as it was suppossed to be warmer and sunnier than Friday, which it was.

So, I prepared my smoker, hive tool etc and went in. I really wanted to see the queen and also check out what was going on.

The bees have not really had an appetite for the 1:1 syrup I have been providing for them in the top bucket feeder but I keep feeding them as they need to draw out a lot of foundation.

I started removing frames from the right side (sunny side) and happily noticed that the 3 frames (just foundation 1 month ago) were all drawn out. This was great!

Then I got to the middle 4 nuc frames. The comb was thick and stuck together to the adjoining frames but I have gotten used to this, so I pried them apart and started my queen search. There were tons of bees here. They were spread out and in clumps. I was uncapped brood, capped honey, pollen both on the bees and in cells, but no queen. Since there are so many more bees now she may have been in the middle of some of those clusters which were deep with bees.

I am still astounded how gentle these girls are as I am literally breaking up their home and they are just looking up at me. I use no gloves, a thick fleece sweatshirt and a veil.

Anyway, I examined all 4 nuc frames and did not see her royal highness. A small dissapointment, but someone must be laying those eggs. I also saw some drones walking around on the frames bu not all that many. I guess this is a good sign. They were very easy to spot as they are HUGE.

So after the four nuc frames I got to the foundation only frames on the left (shady side) of the hive. The outermost was not touched but the other two were started. Some comb was appearing on them. I took the untouched frame and moved it to the sunny side and swapped the fully drawn frame to the shady side.

I also put another (2nd story) full deep of 10 frames (foundation only) on top of this super. The the inner cover, syrup bucket, surrounding hive body and the telescoping cover. Now my hive has 3 stories. 2 brood chambers (full deeps) and a feeder. It looks very cool. I plan to replace the syrup again just to keep it there until the second deep is fully drawn. You can see the new expanded hive in the pic.

More to come.....Bee well.

May 21st - Looking For My Queen

2009-05-25T14:59:00.002-04:00

For some reason, I can't remember exactly why, I wanted to see the queen in my hive. Today I set about looking for her. I opened the hive and the girls all seem very docile and gentle. I have no gloves on (as usual). I went through the frames, one by one but no queen is found. I could've missed her so I am not that concerned. As soon as I close up the hive I remembered that I did not check for eggs or uncapped brood. What a dope!! I am, after all, a beginning beekeeper. Now knowing myself I will start to worry. I note that the girls are all gentle and I believe a queenless hive might have cranky bees but I still have not seen the queen. She is marked with a green dot. I make a mental note to look for her again but I will noy go in for about a week. More to come...Bee well.

May 15th - 14th Day for New Nuc in New Hive

2009-05-17T10:34:00.004-04:00

Well this was it. My mentor, Randy Zeberl, came over and we went into the hive looking for all that nuisance bridge comb. Lo and behold it was not that bad. Randy said it looked fine. We took out and inspected many frames. There were capped brood, uncapped brood, stored syrup (which they haven't been taking in any great amount) and newly drawn comb on the new wax foundation. I did see one swarm(?) cell on the lower portion of one frame which Randy said was no big deal. The urge to swarm is everpresent and the girls might not do anything with it. The girls were very well mannered considering we were taking apart their home but no doses of apitherapy were administered to either of us. It seems puzzling to me that hardly any syrup has been taken by the bees but I am going to mix up a fresh batch of 1:1 and divide it between 2 top feeders and give it to them by the end of the weekend (hopefully). We replaced all the frames and even squeezed in the 10th frame to make it all kosher. We did not see the queen but the uncapped brood means she is there somewhere and doing her thing. No pics this time but I made a mental promise to take pics the next time there is a foray into the hive. Certainly this is a load off my mind that they are doing well and once I give them fresh syrup it's up to the weather and the girls. More to come...bee well.

Day 8 - Not a pretty sight!

2009-05-10T10:00:00.002-04:00

OK....The rain finally broke. I started my smoker (first time), donned my tyvek suit, no gloves but I brought them along (just in case) and I went in. Opened up the hive and saw a congealed mass of comb in the nuc (center four) frames. Ugh! I started taking out frames 1 and 10 to see if there was any comb build out but there was none. Frames 2 and 9 the same situation. However I did see some drawn comb on the center side of frame three but.....due to the fact of the "fat" comb on the nuc frames it looked like the comb build out was shallow there. So here is what I did.
I removed frame 10. I equally spaced the rest of the frames and closed up the hive. My mentor Randy said this was a good interim move. I know I broke comb when I spaced the four nuc frames and I hope I didn't destroy any brood comb but I fear that I did.
Over at beekeepingforums.com Iddee told me to replace frame 10 and gently squeeze all the frames toward the center. That the bees would remove unwanted comb to facilitate proper bee space. I think I will do the following the next chance I get.
I will remove the nuc frames for inspection as I want to spot the queen and make sure she is allright. I will replace frame 10 and gently squeeze toward the center and see how that works out. I think Randy will come over on Thursday or Friday and see what he says.
May the bee gods smile upon me. More to come...

Still More Rain But A Brief Break

2009-05-06T17:50:00.002-04:00

Day - 6. Those poor bees! A brief break in the rain allowed me to check the syrup and they have hardly taken any. I guess they're happy and my wife said they were buzzing around the hive today. When I picked up the feeder bucket they were clustered around and about the hole in the inner cover so I guess that means they know where the syrup is. I phoned my mentor, Randy, and he said they probably are taking what they need and it should be OK. I will check tonight that the syrup flows OK from the bucket. I am out of town Thursday and Friday so hopefully they will be all right. Hey, they know what to do all by themselves....More to come.

Rain, Rain And More Rain

2009-05-05T08:46:00.000-04:00

Day 5 - Has been cloudy, gloomy, chilly and rainy seems like forever. I have not checked the sugar water for 2 days but when I checked Sunday (Day 2) it was still almost full. The girls must be going stir crazy. My hours at work prohibit me from checking the hive while the sun is up. I will try to check tonight when I get home. More to come....

Hive Log 2009

2009-05-02T20:32:00.000-04:00

May 1 – Drove to Flemington NJ (George Schafer) with Randy Zberle to pick up the 4 frame nuc. Rain was moderate when we arrived. We waited about ½ hr and the rain tapered off. I brought my hive body out and opened it. George Jr. opened the nuc box. 4 frames teeming with bees. We saw the queen (emerald mark) and he transferred the frames over. I sealed it up with a strap and placed it in the car. I brought it home, set it on the stand, unsealed it, put on sugar water bucket, empty hive body and outer cover. I have a water bowl setup near hive. No sign of bees.

May 2 – AM – 1 dead bee on bottom board, no action in morning. At 1:00PM a lot of activity and all day activity. I checked bucket and it was still full.