Splitting Elizabeth

July 13, 2011

So this is the adventure of splitting a beehive to make sure it doesn't swarm.  After many e-mails with Rich and much reading about splitting beehives in the many books I now own about bees, I have decided that splitting is the way to go.

This involves moving some of the brood from the donor hive (Queen Elizabeth) into a small hive, making sure that Her Majesty stays with the donor hive.  This means you have to find her!  This also means you need another hive.  Happily Bill is handy and whipped me up a bottom and top for one of my extra supers that I have.  I went into Elizabeth hoping like mad that I would actually find her.  I looked at every frame methodically one by one, checking for health and of course, her. I saw lots of bees but no sign of the queen.  I decided not to panic and to split regardless since I have proven how terrible I am at finding her.  I made sure she wasn't on any of the frames of brood that I was moving to make sure she didn't go into the new hive.  If you are wondering what this move will do; it's to trick both hives into working hard and thinking that there is not reason to swarm after all, particularly the queen.  Losing half her brood will trigger egg laying activity and she will stop dreaming about new digs.  I moved the brood frames with their nurse workers and a bunch of honey frames and closed the hive up.

I added a few empty frames into Queen Elizabeth and closed her up as well.  Now I just cross my fingers for 5-7 days before putting them all back together. And don't they look sweet all in a row?

Queen Elizabeth with split beside her

July 17, 2011

Hot, hot, hot and 46% humidity.  A perfect day to give Elizabeth back her brood...perfect for the bees but extremely uncomfortable for the beekeeper who still wears the full gear.  I waited for the time when the most foragers would be out gathering pollen and nectar.  While I waited, I set up a little pond with a solar fountain so that wouldn't have to fill the bird bath 4 times a day.  That's a fine activity during holidays but I'm back to work and the sun will still be shining down on us.  No rain for 3 weeks is tough on everything, including the bees.  So now the oh, so pampered bees have a watering hole fit for a...well...queen. (sorry)

I have to mention at this time that yours truly  has become quite the expert at lighting the smoker....what I still need to perfect is keeping it going while I'm working and giving it enough fuel to last through working 2 hives.  However do the beekeepers with 100 hives do it?  With the smoker going I opened Elizabeth to look for Her Majesty again to see if she is laying and has forgotten about her silly idea of heading out into the blue yonder.  If she is and I can, I will give back the brood and nurses I took away.  

She is making a fair bit of honey, but I was not interested in that and took of the top super to see if anything had happened in the empty frames.  Lots of wax is being built no egg laying so I took off that super as well.  So into the bottom box, the brood chamber I went.  I get very nervous when I go into this box since it feels very vulnerable and is so very full of bees.  Again, I very methodically started going through the frames to find Her.  I must admit to a certain trepidation since I haven't laid eyes on her since back in June and I didn't know what shape she was in.  Frame by frame I went.  I got to the second last frame and felt my heart sinking.  I knew the outside frame would be only honey with no brood so it was this frame or bust.  Bingo!  There she was in all her glory, looking quite fat and content with her attendants around her.  I was so happy to see her.  Here she is for you to check out...nice and close.

Queen Elizabeth I...you can find her without my help!

I closed Elizabeth up and proceeded to add the split colony.  It will be glad to be back since it has been living without a queen for 5 days.  The nurses will not leave the brood for any reason.  They will guard and feed it to the death apparently.  Eventually the little colony would dwindle without eggs being laid but it can exist for about a month without her.  To add the split I put a sheet of newspaper with slits in it over the main colony and then placed the split hive on top of that.  This is so that the bees will integrate slowly and avoid any fighting between the two halves.  The bees will peel away the newspaper and fly away with the bits to clean up the hive.  I didn't give Elizabeth another honey super to work on since she isn't ready yet.  Closed her up and thought I would check on Hippolyta while I was at it.

Newspaper between main colony and split colony.

Hippolyta's honey production has been incredible but when I opened her up it wasn't all that much.  I imagine that the lack of rain is affecting the nectar production of the flowers around here.  What is blooming right now?  Thyme, which they love, some sage still, oregano, basil, yellow clover on the tracks, yarrow and perennial sweet pea.  My day lilies are starting but I have never seen bees there and they have shown no interest whatsoever in the amazing stand of bee balm I have...how does that figure?

Baby it's hot outside

So no new box for Hippolyta and I am sitting in the shade with lemonade while we watch the bees figure out the new pond and deal with a sheet of newpaper of old news.  We are all hot and there are a significant number of bees buzzing on the front of both hives.  

New water source for the bees...and all the other insects

We are all content...until the next adventure!

July 9, 2011 Part III

Inspection of Queen Elizabeth I

She is just a little slower than Hippolyta.  The top super only had some drawn combs and none of the honey was  capped yet.  I moved on to the next box and found it completely drawn and with capped brood in the centre frames.  What I found between the two boxes was a bunch of drone cells.  Because it was all stuck together, I pulled the drone cells apart when removing the frames.  I took a few out with my capping scraper to check for mites just in case.  Here are pictures of the drone cells which are bigger than cells for the workers since the drones are so big...you can see the larvae where the wax cell was pulled off.  Also a picture of capped honey from the next box just to show that Elizabeth is capable.

Drone cells at bottom of frame

Full frame of capped honey for the bee winter feeding

While I was in the hives I noticed that there were a lot of drones hanging around which was new to me.  I have since discovered that the drones only go out in the afternoon between 1 and 4 pm and that virgin queens go out at the same time to make sure that they meet and do what has to be done.  Here's a picture of a drone for you to look at.  They are larger, mine have black abdomens and have very big eyes.  All the drones do is fertilize the queen.  They are fed and cleaned up after by the workers (females).  To give them their due, if the drone does get to fertilize a queen, it is the last thing he will ever do since their reproductive organs are torn out in doing so.

Drone is in bottom left hand corner

When I got to the bottom box it looked great BUT I found queen cells with larvae in them.  I panicked and cut them off since I know that it usually means that the colony is thinking about swarming.  I was not expecting to have to deal with swarming in my first season of bee keeping.  As I considered this in the hot afternoon sun the sweat poured down my face and I felt my resolve faltering.  Did I mention the weight of the boxes with honey and bees in them?  They are at least 60 pounds...just about as much as I can handle.Was I mad to try bee keeping? 

 I put Elizabeth back together and didn't give her another box since she is slower and went inside to check my books and write Rich about my findings:  Larvae nice and plump and white...queen cells with larvae eeek!

There are as many opinions on what to do about potential swarming as there are bee keepers!  I am going to go with Rich's opinion and split the colony.  Pretty exciting stuff for a 6 week old bee keeper...it also means figuring out another hive.   Read my next blog for this new adventure.

July 9, 2011 Part II

3:00 pm  Big Bee Inspection

I am inspecting both hives today.  I decided to wait until after the bee chat at Oxford Honey and Supplies so that I would have just a little more information to add to my own understanding of the bees.  Earlier in the week I had bought 4 bee keeping books from another bee keeper from the NW part of London with 125 hives, Rich.  He is very generous with his advice and is quickly becoming an e-mail friend.

I have spent a fair bit of time gazing at the bees these days since I am on holidays.  The weather as been glorious and the bees are working around the clock.  The other morning I noticed a bee dropping something white in front of the hive.  A passing hornet pounced on it but I grabbed it, photographed it and sent the picture to Rich with the subject line:  What is it?  He sent back a treatise on the possibilities and a specific list of things to look for when I open up the hives:
1.  Look for the queen...ha! easy for him to say!
2.  Look for queen cells with larvae in them
3.  Check for all stages of brood and a consistent pattern
4.  Larvae should be plump and pearly white

So into the hives I went.  Queen Hippolyta First.

The top super had every single frame drawn and honey in all cells.  The centre frames are capped already...she is so amazing!  This honey is probably surplus, which means that I can have some of it as long as I make sure the hive has at least 60 pounds of honey to feed on through winter.  When the honey is capped it means that is completely ripened and has most of the moisture taken out of it.  Honey must have a 16% to 18% moisture content and no more or it will ferment.  To put this into perspective, the nectar that the bees bring back to the hive is about 80% water so they have to ventilate it until it is at the correct moisture content. Much like boiling down maple syrup except that we have fossil fuels to help us out instead of tiny wings whirring like mad.  Here's a pic of the lovely honey partially capped with wax.

Capped honey top half and uncapped below

I took that super (box) off and set it on the ground on edge.  The bees just stay with it.  I have wood chip around the hives and the chips stuck to the boxes and got stuck between the boxes when I put the hive back together so next time I will put down a piece of ply wood. All the frames in the next super were completely drawn and the centre frames have brood and honey in them.  The brood looks great and I have no concerns about this hive at all.  Here are a couple of pictures of the brood frames.  One is capped brood with a thin band of pollen and then honey around to feed the larvae and one has capped brood and larvae (the white cells) and honey.

Capped brood with honey around edges

Capped brood and larvae

I didn't find Her Majesty during this check but all seemed to be in order so I pronounced Hippolyta happy and healthy and added another super on top for more honey production.

July 9, 2011 Part I

11:00 am Oxford Honey & Supplies Visit

I went to visit Oxford Honey and Supplies in Burgessville this morning.  I had just been there a few days prior to buy more supers (honey boxes) since the bees are extremely industrious these days.  They told me that John, the owner and bee keeper of 100 hives did chats about bees every Saturday at 11 am.  So I went to learn more...there is so much more!  John has a screened in viewing area so people can watch without feeling frightened of the bees.  Today there were 2 older tourist being shown around Southern Ontario by a friend, another brand new bee keeper from Dorchester and a father with two small children.

John opened up a hive that was performing really well and proceeded to show us the frames with capped honey, the brood areas, pollen areas, drone cells...he poked a few drone cells open to check the larvae for Varrao mites (the scourge of the bee keeping industry).  We found one larvae that looked suspicious so saved it for a closer look inside the store.  We were shown an Australian queen in another hive who was not perfoming well...this hive had no extra box on it and the one we opened first had 4 extra boxes.  Then we were shown an Ontario bred queen...tiger striped and very beautiful.  He answered question after question and the session lasted 2 hours.  Amazing...and I wanted more.  We went into the store to check on the drone larvae and sure enough, it was a mite.  A little round red insect that you can see with the naked eye.  They like to hang in with the drone larvae since they are in the cells the longest before coming out.  These mites latch onto the backs of the bees and suck.  The worst they do is weaken the bees and leave opening for viruses to take hold and if they are not controlled can destroy an entire colony by weakening it.  More on that story later...I promise the information posting is coming!

While we were in the store, a neighbouring bee keeper came in for supplies.  Chris started with two hives last year and now has about 60 hives!  He goes to markets with an observation hive that he built that has two frames on top of each other enclosed in plexiglas both sides.  He challenged me to find the queen...which is an easy task when you are standing in a cool store studying only 1500 bees behind plexi!  I found her very quickly...the same cannot be said for my foray this afternoon as you shall see.

One month anniversary for my bees

June 20, 2011

Sorry it's been awhile since I wrote but I have been as busy as the bees these last few days.  Watching the bees is still my favourite thing to do when not busy though.  They are making me more aware of all the other insects in my garden.  I have also become aware of the plants that they like and plants that they don't bother with.  This may become a garden blog as well as a bee blog since they are so connected to each other.  Trees that are blooming right now around here are lindens, catalpas and tree of heaven.  Flowers in bloom in my garden are daisies, some lilies, thyme, sage, roses, feverfew, perennial geranium, hostas and clover.  I know for sure that the bees are in love with sage and they are starting to check out the thyme...purple/blue seems to be the colour of choice.  How perfect that the herbs happen to be very close to our deck so we can watch them easily!

It was very hot today and I came home early to Bill calling me to take a look at the bees.  They were all going nuts!  The hives were covered in bees going up and down the fronts.  Dozens of bees flying around the front doors and bees piling up on each other.  I can only assume that this was their reaction to the heat since it all settled down as the sun moved around.

Hot bees climbing front of hive

June 27, 2011

Cool story

Bill and I were watching the bees around 6 pm (does it sound like we don't do anything but?).  We started to notice strange activity at Hippolyta's hive.  Bees were fighting other bees and flying away with them if they could.  As we looked more closely, we realized that the bees being fought were not our bees.  They were skinnier, longer and have whiter stripes.  I assume they were trying to rob my perfect bees!  I hope that my bees aren't doing the same elsewhere.  After watching for awhile, I became human and decided to step in.  I add an entrance reducer so that the guard bees would have a smaller opening to protect.  After a bit, the fighting stopped and all was well.  Meanwhile Elizabeth I  next door, went on as if nothing was happening despite all the turmoil just two feet away!

The next morning I took the reducer out as I was leaving town and didn't want them to get too hot.  At about the same time that evening, Bill texted me with the information that fighting was occurring again.  He put the reducer in and we left it in after that for a couple of days.  Not sure what all this means but it's good to know that my bees are feisty and will not tolerate these new bees.

CANADA DAY!!

I have officially had bees for one month.  I decided that I should check to see if the bees needed more room.  My reading told me that if at least 4 frames were full of bees and comb that it would be time to give them another super.

I opened Hippolyta first.  There was no comb under the lid and it was fairly easy to get the lid off.  Imagine my surprise to see every frame full of bees!  I simply added another super without another look and closed up the hive.  Next I went to Elizabeth I and again the lid came up easily.  There was a bit of comb under the lid with a bit of honey in it.  It was easy to clean up and since I have become proficient with the smoker, brush and the hive tool, I managed to do it without any casualties. Eight of the ten frames were covered in bees and comb!  In both hives, I was able to put the new supers on gently and with no squishing of bees.  

No burr comb under Hippolyta's lid!

Little burr comb under Elizabeth I lid

Proud three decker hives

I had put the burr comb with the bit of honey in a bucket and placed it in front of the hive for the bees to clean up.  When I went to get it it still had a bit of honey in it and Bill wanted to taste it.  He tried it and pronounced it "perfume-y" so I tried it.  The honey we were tasting was "unripe" honey and had not been ripened and capped by the bees yet.  It still had its strong floral flavour.  As you know, the bees have been enjoying the blossoms of the sage in our yard.  This honey tasted of the sage blossoms...a strange, perfume-y, flowery, herbal flavour.  Beautiful to taste a flower!

Comb from under the Queen Elizabeth I lid

 Dare I dream of surplus honey?  I will have to investigate harvesting methods...so much to learn and it all sounds sticky.  We are already talking about what my honey name/label should be.

So Happy Canada Day, everyone...the sun is shining and the royal couple is spending their honeymoon with us.

"In many parts of Europe it was traditional to supply a newly married couple with enough mead (honey alcohol) for a month, ensuring happiness and fertility."

See...bees are important everywhere.