The daughters of Queen Elizabeth I & Queen Hippolyta

June 13, 2012

This posting should have been written awhile ago but as faithful followers know, Queen Elizabeth I took my energy as I dealt with issues...OK... perceived issues.  So on this beautiful Canada Day, I can finally tell you the story of the daughters of the two first hives...the swarms I caught in May.

They are named Nefertiti, daughter of Hippolyta and Queen Latifah, daughter of Elizabeth I. One day they will get art on their hives, too.  With these two hives, I have the opportunity to try out what I have learned from The Natural Beekeeper.  There are  three things I am trying with these hives.

 I have given these two hives a top entrance rather than both a top and bottom entrance.  The theory here is that the hives are safer from predators, particularly skunks since skunks scrabble at the entrance until the bees come down to investigate and then eat them like popcorn.  They will keep doing this until the whole hive is emptied if they get a chance.  And we all know how many skunks roam the streets of London!  There is also evidence that the hive is kept cleaner because of the top entrance but I have no proof of that yet.

I am also working with medium or shallow boxes only.  This allows for more manipulation of the frames between the boxes.  I might be able to avoid the swarming of this season by moving brood around as I wish...between the boxes and between the other hives.  I also will avoid ruining my back as I move the heavy boxes around.

The third and most exciting change is that I am trying to switch the bees to open frames from plastic foundation.  I am still at 50% foundation and 50% open frames.  There is a growing group of beekeepers who believe that we should not be dictating to the bees what size their cells should be.  In the 1800's research showed that if the cells were bigger then the bees would be bigger and therefore would collect more honey.  The problem with this theory is that the bigger bees can't fly as far so they can't find the best foraging if there are problems closer to the hive.  Also, mites seem to like the larger cells better.   Perhaps letting the bees have smaller cells will fight that which is what I am hoping for.  It all makes sense to me so I will try to let the bees choose their own way.  I am doing it slowly and hope that by the end of the season I will have switched them over to 100% open frames.  The issue for me will be how to extract the honey.  I will have to be extra careful since the combs will not be as robust without the plastic.  Bill has added a wire across some of the frames I have put in and perhaps that will give some strength to the combs.

I cannot describe to you how beautiful a comb that has been built on an open frame is.  It is white and jewel like.  I could see the shadows of the bees working on the other side of it when I held the comb up to the sun.  It is much more fragile so I need to keep it straight so as not to break its tenuous grip on the wooden strip at the top of the frame.

You can see in the following pictures how the bees start working from the wooden strip at the top down and then fill in the sides and bottom.

Queen Latifah beginning to build comb in an open frame

Nefertiti starting to cap honey on open frame

Queen Latifah with capped brood on open frame

While I was in Queen Latifah we witnessed an extraordinary thing.  When the larva has changed into an adult bee, it comes out of the cell by eating the wax cap covering it.  This a picture of the emergence though it does not do justice to this amazing happening.  You can see the emerging bees in the two dark spots just on the edge of the white unused comb.

Emerging bees...witnessing a birth!

Here is a picture of larva and capped brood close up.

Capped brood and larva

I have added shallows on all the hives and will leave them alone to the middle of July.  I have checked for mites on the large hive and will check again this weekend.  This is mostly to monitor and make sure that they are still thriving in spite of the mites.  Here are the FOUR hives with their new shallow boxes installed.

Four hives with new shallow boxes.

I will leave you with summer images of the garden.  It is a glorious summer!  

Honey bee on milkweed flowers

Lilies with wooden mushroom

Blue Angel and Frances Williams hostas 

Honey bee on thyme flowers

Toad with thyme and basil

Lilies, hydrangea and metal maple tree

HAPPY CANADA DAY!!!

How the Novice Beekeeper Jumped to the Wrong Conclusion

June 18, 2012

It was time for action, the Novice Beekeeper decided.  The queen could not be found and yet there was a frame of drone brood (male sterile brood, she thought).  Aha, a laying worker!  No need to look further.  I will combine this hive with Hippolyta, make a stronger hive and all will be well.

The next day, armed with smoker, tools and a sheet of newspaper she went to the beeyard to combine the two hives.  First she opened Hippolyta and laid the sheet of newspaper on top of the box.  She made three slits, as the books told her to...this way the bees could slowly integrate with each other by eating away the newspaper slowly.

Newspaper on top box of Hippolyta

She then opened Queen Elizabeth I, lifted the top box and set it on the newspaper.

Combining two hives

The Novice  then proceeded to take out the frames from the next box of Queen E.   She blithely began to brush the bees off the frames into the box she had just moved.  One frame done and into a waiting container.  Two frames done.  Third frame...hmmmm....it seemed to have capped and open brood on it.  Curious.  Put it back in to think about.  Fourth frame...aha...drone brood...into a garbage bag to be frozen asap.  Fifth frame...brood again...hmmm...curiouser and curiouser.  Sixth frame...a quick look before doing the brushing...oh my...you have to be kidding me!!!  Whaaaaa???  A fat queen with her retinue around her?    

Queen Elizabeth I with her attendants

It was pure luck that our Novice happened to spot her before brushing the whole shebang into the moved box!  Back in go all the frames.  Back on top goes the box.  Off comes the newspaper.  And on go both the tops.  Many apologies were made to the bees who were probably wondering what in the world had just happened. Our Novice then walked back to the house hanging her head in shame.

The moral of this story is:  Listen to what the experts say in the books...if you don't know what's wrong don't do anything! 

On the bright side, this means all hives are ruled by their respective queens!  Hopefully they are strong queens who are laying many eggs every day to create strong hives.  On the less bright side, this means I still have 4 hives! 

The End

Life after Swarming

June 9, 2012

It was time to go into Queen Elizabeth I and Hippolyta to check how they have dealt with the swarming.  They both had capped brood which I assume was laid by the old queens before they took off with the very first swarms.  The whole frame is covered in brood in a beautiful formation in both hives.  Capped brood is larvae that has been fed and then capped with wax until it transforms into a full grown bee.  The bee then gnaws its way out of the cell to start working.

Capped brood

I went further down into Hippolyta searching for her majesty...a very difficult task usually but the number of bees is low and Bingo!  There she is in all her glory...just starting to do her work.  Hopefully she will start laying eggs and get the hive going again.  Remember, 2,000 eggs a day!

Introducing Her Majesty Hippolyta II!

Unfortunately, Queen Elizabeth I was not so successful.  I was unable to find the queen in this hive but this is what I did find.  In the second box I found a full frame of drone cells and nothing else.  This means that there is no queen but a worker has taken it upon herself to fill the gap.  The worker has become a laying bee but since she was never fertilized, can only lay sterile eggs.  This leads to only drones being born.  If this hive continued down this road it would eventually die since no female workers are being produced.  Here is a picture of the drone brood frame.

Frame with drone brood

I think that my next step will be to unite this box with Hippolyta and let the queen take over both hives. Hopefully the strength of Hippolyta along with the bees from Queen E will give me one strong hive.  I am also trying to get all of my boxes to be shallows so when I unite these two hives, I will also be keeping the queen down in the bottom boxes with a queen excluder.  When all of the brood finally emerges then I will take the two deep boxes off and cut them down.  If I don't do this, I will be one of the many beekeepers with bad backs!  The deeps full of bees and honey weigh 90 lbs!  The shallows full of bees and honey weigh only (ONLY!?) 60 lbs.  And...I will end up with 3 hives...downsizing already!  

I also had put in the mite check boards slathered in vaseline in both QE and QH to see whether I had mites in these hives. The boards sit under a screen and when the bees groom they  knock the mites down onto the boards and the mites will stick to the vaseline. Remember the hives have been weakened due to two successive swarms each.  Varroa mites are not an indigenous pest and honey bees are not resistant to them.  They attach themselves to the bee and then feed on them.  A bad infestation of mites can kill a weak hive.  The Varroa mite sneaks into a cell with a larvae before it gets capped and then proceeds to procreate in there while feeding on the larvae.  The bee that comes from that larva will sometimes have deformed wings and I have seen evidence of that.  Sadly, I have also found mites on both boards.  If you have a strong stomach, you can look at the next picture of a Varroa mite, scourge of the honey bee.

Bleech!  A Varroa mite...see the sucking pincers?

You may remember that I do not use chemicals to treat my bees and I am not planning to start now.  I know that the mites like the drone cells best since the drones are in the larvae state the longest.  I will take that frame of drone brood in Queen E and happily freeze it!  Ha Ha Ha Ha!  I may also dust the bees with powdered sugar which helps them shake off the mites while grooming...and it tastes good too.  I am in the process of switching all the frames to open without the plastic foundation so that the bees can choose the size cell they want which will help too.  The bees will naturally choose to make a smaller cell size which the mites don't like.  But mostly, I will let the bees fight it out with the mites and hope that if they win, they will become more naturally resistant.  Much like the human problem with anti-biotics and super bugs, if the bees are chemically treated, they become weaker but the mites and viruses grow ever stronger.  I am trusting in Darwin...hope he was right!

So wish these hives luck.  Tomorrow I will write how the two swarms I caught are faring in their hives...and show you beautiful pictures of open frame comb.