July to August Bee Diary

Aug 18, 2013
 It's been a month since I have written. I have been into the bees many times since that last post so I thought I'd better catch you up with a few notes and some visuals.

July 7 Looking for the New Queens

I knew it was a little early to be looking for hatched and/or fertilized queens but since I was heading out of town for a while, I thought I would check. I had a couple of hope-to-be beekeepers coming to visit so I knew it would be interesting for them as well. I opened the experimental hive first. The queens had not hatched yet but the worker bees that I had grabbed from Queen Olivia to populate the hive had decided to build another queen in response to this queenless hive. I removed this queen cell fdue to my human need to meddle! Here is the frame with the queen cells still capped and my visitors looking at a frame.

Capped Queen cells on bottom of frame

Melodie and Gerhard

July 11  First Honey Harvest of Summer 2013

I took 3 frames of capped honey from Queen Olivia and Queen Mab II to harvest since they had a bit of surplus.  I am using the crush and strain method now instead of using my beautiful extractor.  I cut the whole comb out of the frame and let the honey drip through a nylon cloth.  In some ways it is faster as I only do a few frames at a time and I don't have to clean out the extractor every time.

Cutting the honey comb out of the frame.

Bill made me a beautiful shelf for the beeyard for setting the boxes on.  Its cross pieces have a point cut into them so there is as little contact as possible with the boxes.  This way the squishing of bees is minimized.  An awesome addition to the beeyard--good for the bees and my back!

Perfect shelf to hold the boxes

July 17  Hot Bees

It may be hard to believe that we went through a heat wave that had everyone and everything drooping.  It went as high as 35 degrees but was feeling like 42 degrees with the humidity.  It felt like it lasted forever though it was in reality only about a week and half. We had all our fans going non-stop to deal with it.  The bees were madly fanning as well and hanging on their front porches day and night.

Queen Mab II and Queen Olivia cooling off

July 23  Introducing Queen Sangria

I finally got a chance to go into the hives to see if the queens had hatched and been fertilized.  It was a cool and sunny day.  I went into my experimental hive first and there she was!  A big, striped queen laying eggs.  There was new brood and new wax being drawn.  (My great nieces Madison and Megan named her Queen Sangria as that is the drink of choice this summer.)  I gave this hive a box of frames on top to give them some room.  I then went to Queen Mab II.  Though I did not find her Majesty, it was very clear that she was doing great since there was evidence of laying.

Queen Sangria--you can find her!

August 4  Fixing "wonky honey comb"

I figured I'd better look into Queen Olivia, my star hive to see if there was any surplus honey to be harvested.  What I found was "wonky honey comb".  Since I don't use plastic foundation, the bees are left to their own devices to build straight combs.  Mostly they do, but in this hive they had built on angle so each comb started in one frame and then half way through continued to the next frame.  This makes taking the frames out singly impossible without making a very sticky mess.  I took out 5 capped frames to harvest and then tried to fix the rest with wire.  Honey was dripping everywhere and the bees were in a frenzy trying to clean it up before strange bees or wasps happened upon the mess.  Once I had the broken comb fixed I gave it to Queen Sangria to eat/clean up.

Wiring the combs back into the frames

August 17  Bee Check

It has been unseasonably cool these last two weeks with temperatures going as low as 12 degrees some nights.  I imagine the nectar production is limited though I have seen a lot of pollen going into the hives.

It was time to see if the hives needed more room and if all was well.  I checked Queen Sangria and found her Majesty happily laying.  They still hadn't done much work in their extra box but I saw that they had cleaned out the two fixed frames completely which supports the theory that there hasn't been much nectar.  I hope that she can build up the population to a large enough cluster to make it through the winter.  If she doesn't I will have to amalgamate her with another hive.

I opened up Queen Olivia and also found her Majesty working in the bottom box.  There hasn't been a lot of honey production in her either so I left all frames in.  To tell the truth, I wasn't that interested in harvesting honey this weekend anyway.  

Busy doorway at Queen Olivia

I then went into Queen Mab II.  For the first time ever, I found her Majesty!  She was working in the second box from the bottom  She is striped just like Queen Sangria, as they are related, if not full sisters.  The hive looks busy and healthy but I did spot a varroa mite on one of the workers.  Of course, I knew that all the hives must have mites but it is still disappointing to see one.  We will see how the hives do.

Queen Mab II--right in the middle of her retinue

So there's your little update on the bees of Waxen City.  I have harvested about 23 lbs of honey.  The first harvest has an extremely floral taste...perhaps linden tree?  The second harvest is just plain sweet!  It is still a wonderful hobby.  I feel that I learn something new each time I go into the hives and I have become more calm and relaxed as I work with them.  

I know that there has been a lot of media around honey bees and other pollinators and their precarious position in our world.  I will write again about that and the ominous possibility of a world without bees but for now, enjoy the sunshine and the incredible Ontario harvest of fruits and vegetables available at our markets.   I leave you with an image of a Red Admiral butterfly on an echinacea blossom.

Red Admiral butterfly on echinacea

Queen Rearing Workshop in Burgessville Part 2

The beautiful view at John's bee yard

June 19, 2013

And the story of queen rearing continues.

Day 21 - 26:  The fertilized queen has returned from her fertilizing flights to mating hive and is laying eggs.  The hive should be checked at this point to make sure that she has come back safely and is indeed laying.  She can then be caught, marked and caged to be added to a hive that needs a queen.  Marking the queen tells you what year she was born.  There is an international code for marking queens:

Colour          Year ending in

White            1 or 6

Yellow          2 or 7

Red               3 or 8

Green            4 or 9

Blue              5 or 0

Take the first letter of each colour and say "Will You Raise Good Bees?" to remember the colour chart.

We practised picking up drones by the wings and then marking them.  Drones can't sting and are not as "valuable" as queens.

Marking a drone with a paint marker

The queen can then be caged with 5-8 attendant bees (young bees that care for the queen) and some queen candy (fondant).  The candy acts as a slow-release plug.  The cage is added to an existing queenless hive and the workers in the hive eat away the candy.  As they work they slowly become accustomed to the pheremone of the queen and learn to accept her.  When the candy is all eaten the queen can come out, be accepted by the population and start laying.

Queen Cage installed on frame

Plastic and wooden queen cages

It was so cool to be hanging out with a bunch of fellow bee keepers in the beautiful Ontario countryside.  Some of us were new bee keepers and some with many years of experience and we all had different reasons for wanting to learn about queen rearing.  I was there purely to satisfy my curiosity and others wanted to be able to raise their own queens to make sure that they would have a supply when queens were needed or to save money on re-queening.

Beekeepers with trainer (the one in bare arms!)

I will probably never raise queens since I only have two hives but I learned so much about the biology of bees.  I also learned to be more comfortable around the bees...John's bees are very gentle and I was working barehanded the entire day.  The most exciting thing for me was picking up a drone to mark it.  Bare hands are necessary for this fine work.  That is not to say that I will be that cocky always...I do not enjoy being stung!

Proud graduates!

We drove home after the workshop tired and fulfilled.  A great day for all of us!

Queen Rearing Workshop in Burgessville Part 1

June 19, 2013

On Sunday, June 9 I took part in a queen rearing workshop put on by the Ontario Beekeepers Association.  It took place in Burgessville south of Woodstock at John Blyderveen's beeyard.  I got Queen Olivia from him.

I carpooled with 3 other beekeepers from London and the first thing one of them said as she got into the truck was, " Isn't this going to be great?  We can talk about bees all the way down and back and know that we are not boring anyone!"  It was true...we talked bees all the way there.  How fun is that?

John has a business, Oxford Honey and Supplies.  He sells supplies to beekeepers, extracts and bottles honey and also has his own bees.  He builds nucs with imported bees from Australia and sells them. This season he has been struggling as so many of his bees are perishing due to the neonicotinoid pesticide that is being used to pre-treat the corn in the fields around his farm.  He welcomed 24 beekeepers into his beeyard regardless of these losses and let us tear his beehives apart and put them back together multiple times.  Here is a shot of some of his hives he keeps behind the farm house.

John's Bee yard

We registered and were given blue or red name tags to put us into two teams for learning.  I was in the red team...Go Red!  First we did some classroom learning about queen and drone biology, queen rearing equipment, record keeping, timing and other methods of queen rearing.

You may remember from former posts that any larva has the potential of becoming a queen if it is  fed a large amount of royal jelly for a longer period of time by the nurse bees.  You also might remember that the hive has only one queen and she has to go out of the hive to mate with 10-20 drones.  This takes place over 2-3 days.  She then is able to lay 1000-1500 eggs per day and some of them will be drone eggs and most will be worker eggs.  

So we were reminded of all of this in the class. We learned that honey bees will rear queens when the colony is queenless, or the present queen is being replaced or the colony is preparing to swarm.  When these circumstances are in play, the nurse bees will choose a larva that is 1 day old and start feeding it royal jelly.  They will also build out the cell to be able to hold a queen, which is called a queen cup.  

We were there to learn how to produce the queens ourselves.  We learned how to find  a 1 day old larva, pick it out of the cell with a paint brush or Chinese grafting tool, and move it to a  queen cup made of wax or plastic.  I was terrible at it and my grafts certainly all perished.  The larva needs to be put in the queen cup in exactly the same position since its breathing holes are only on the top and it would drown if put in upside down.  A frame of queen cups can hold as many as 45 queen cups.  Here is a picture of a strip of queen cups and a frame of brood we were grafting from.   Next is a frame that  holds the strips of queen cups.

Queen cups for grafting--yellows one are wax, grey ones are plastic

Day 0:  The frame of queen cups is then put into the centre of an empty box with the following frames:

1. Honey & pollen

2. Empty foundation

3. Capped brood

4. Capped brood

5. Pollen

6. The frame of grafted larvae

7. Open Larva

8. Capped brood

9. Capped brood

10. Frame feeder full of 50% syrup

Queen cup frame in cell starter

This is a queenless hive which means the worker bees will be motivated to create queens.  This is called the queenless cell starter.

(Always check all the frames for natural queen cells since that could upset the whole idea...also make sure there is no queen!)  Lots of bees are needed for this operation.  Once this box is set up, the workers will  start drawing out the queen cups to create the large queen cells needed for the queen larvae to grow.  They feed the larvae royal jelly the whole time.

Day 2:  The box is placed on top of a hive that is queen-right (has a healthy queen).  A queen excluder is place between the two boxes to separate the queen from the hive on the bottom and our queen builder.  This is called the queen-right cell finisher.  The workers are spurred on to finish off the queen cells and capping them by knowing that they have a queen and will prepare for swarming behaviour. 

Day 10:  Brush the bees gently off the cells and move each queen cell carefully to a nuc (4 frame hive) or a mini mating box...a tiny hive.  A pheremone strip is added to the tiny hives to encourage the workers to remain in the nuc. 

Pheremone strip

The queen cell is attached to the wax comb by making an indent int the wax and then gently adding the cell.

Mini Mating box---tiny hive!

Queen cell added to comb in mating hive.

Add two cups of bees to mating hive...and do not stir.

Day 12:  The virgin queen emerges from the queen cell.

Day 13 - 17:  The virgin queen grows and prepares for her maiden flights.  It must be sunny, above 18 degrees Celsius and not very windy.

Day 17 - 20:  The virgin queen is mated by 10-20 drones by flying to areas where drones are hanging around waiting for virgins.  If many queens are being raised in the bee yard, the bee keeper will make sure that many drones are being raised as well.

Too many pictures for one post so Part 2 will tell you what happens next!  See you.

A Series of Related Bee Events

Thursday June 27, 2013

In the middle of a meeting at work, I got a call from Bill letting me know that there was a very large swarm in the top of our Manitoba maple...very high up.  I suggested he set up a bait hive on top of a ladder to see if we could entice them into it.

Bait hive on top of ladder

All day Thursday, she stayed up in the tree.  It was rainy all day Friday.  I wrote John the beekeeper to see if he could tell me how long the bees could survive in a rainstorm out in the open.  He wrote me back to let me know that a swarm outside could last 4-5 days.  In fact, it is sometimes easier to entice the swarm into a box in inclement weather.  I rubbed lemon grass on the box and left some in the opening hoping that she could not resist it.  At this point I had no idea where this swarm was from though logic would  say that it must be one of my hives...likely Queen Mab.  My sister was convinced that the swarm was Queen Maggie coming back!  We crossed our fingers.

Saturday was still grey but starting to clear and she was still up in the tree.  Bill and I were very busy that day since we were part of a local garden crawl (much like a pub crawl  including lovely drinks at each garden) and were hosting the bbq later that day.  I had my camera with me all morning in case something happened with the swarm.  Nothing.  Nothing that is until Bill and I were completely immersed in setting up tables and chairs.  During that extremely short period of time, the swarm decided to take off.  What an anti-climax!

We shrugged, took down the bait hive and had a lovely garden party.

PS:  We did catch a cat though! :)

Smokey climbed the ladder to entertain us

Monday July 1, 2013

Happy Canada Day!

I went into Queen Mab to see what had happened and if that swarm on the weekend was her.  What I found was a so-so strong hive with at least 8 capped queen cells.  No Queen Mab to be found.  I really should have gotten a puppy!  Sigh.

Capped queen cells

Queen Mab laid the eggs in the queen cups so that the hive would still have a queen after she left with half of the hive.  The workers fed the larvae with royal jelly for the entire time until they capped the cell.

This swarm was so unexpected since the hive was young but they were extremely healthy and built comb super fast on the open frames.

I wrote Dave and John for advice and to see if they had any mated queens for sale.  Neither of them had any queens and they both said to just let the hive alone to hatch its own queen naturally.

Tuesday July 2, 2013

I got scared by the Queen Mab story so I thought I'd better go into Queen Olivia this morning.  She is very, very strong.  She has lots of honey stored in the top box.  I found her majesty very easily and I didn't find any sign of queen cells or queen cups on any of the frames.  Yippee!

I have decided to do an experiment and have started a third small hive with a couple of frames of honey and brood from Queen Olivia and a frame of brood with 3 queen cells from Queen Mab.  It will be very interesting to see how this plays out.  I closed up Olivia and added another box on top for honey storage.

In case you are wondering what the timetable for these queen cells to move on to being queens in their own right, here you are:

In 7 days from today the queens should emerge.  The queen will strengthen, put her make up on and then head out to be fertilized by 10-20 drones.  She will then come back to the hive and start laying eggs.  That is all she will do for the rest of her life ( 3-5 years) unless she gets sick or accidentally dies...or she swarms due to a unaware beekeeper taking care of her.

In 21-28 days from today I should be seeing eggs in the comb.  I am going to go into both hives with queen cells next Tuesday to see if they have hatched and to see which one got the crown.  The first queen to hatch will go to all the other cells and kill the occupants.  If they hatch at the same time, they will have a duel to the death.  The queen uses her stinger in this duel and she is capable of stinging multiple times.  I am told that she will only use her stinger in this fight and not for stinging humans.  I haven't tested that theory...don't plan on it actually...she is much bigger than a worker!

It seems that beekeeping this season is very dramatic.  Makes for a more interesting blog.

I am on holidays now so gardening and beekeeping are my focus these days...and sleeping in.

Campanula with yellow lilies

Honey bee at sage blossoms

Happy summer!

Catching the Grand Swarm!

June 20, 2013

It was the day before the Equinox so of course, something epic should take place!

Some of you may know that the restaurant next to the theatre has two beehives on its roof.  This restaurant specializes in local foods and does a honey festival in the fall.  I have always been interested in these hives and coincidentally, I had just met the beekeeper, Albert the weekend before.

The afternoon of June 20 I was out in the parking lot with a co-worker when we looked up and saw thousands of bees swirling above us!  A swarm was in motion and clearly from one of the hives on the roof behind us.  I followed them across the lot and almost immediately they all settled on a tiny tree at the edge of the lot.

Swarming bees

Cluster on the tree trunk

I immediately texted this photo to my husband, Bill and his answer was, "...do you want me to bring a box down?" I went to the restaurant to let them know what was going on and we called Albert to talk to him.  He was too far away to do anything about it and let me know that if could capture them, they were mine!  I also wrote Bob, the Chair of the local Beekeeping Association.  He wished me luck and said that if I caught them, he would buy them from me.  

Bill came down with a box, frames, my bee suit, a brush...but no gloves!  The bees are docile when they are swarming...right?  Yes, of course they are but if you accidentally bump into their stinger end, they still will react...and it still hurts when it happens.  I know.

This swarm was not an easy one to capture...no large mass hanging from a convenient branch that could be shaken into a box.  These bees were up against the trunk and had to be slowly brushed into the box.  They came away in huge clumps and I brushed and hoped I would get the queen and that I wouldn't damage her.  There were thousands of bees!  IT WAS EPIC!  My co-workers were watching from a safe distance.  Bill was being official photographer.

Brushing the bees into the box

I slowly brushed and finally the box was pretty full and the tree was almost empty.

Box full of bees

We moved the box to the truck and the rest of the bees followed.  I started putting frames in.  I only got 6 in and then we put the lid on. I sent Bill home with a box of bees and went back to work  Bill put the box in the beeyard.  I knew I had to go into them as soon as possible to add the rest of the frames and to give them another box so this healthy hive would have enough room.

The next day I set up a bottom and extra box and then set my new hive on top.  I then opened her up.  They had already started to build comb in the space left in the box beside the frames...remember a box holds 10 frames and I had only put in 6.  The comb they were building was sideways!

Sideways cob built in the empty space

Close up of sideways comb

I broke off this new comb, added the extra 4 frames and then shook all the bees from the temporary lid into the hive.  I then added the lid and thought...a perfect home!

Shaking the bees into the hive.

We christened her Queen Maggie in honour of the famous British actress, Maggie Smith who has probably played every Queen onstage.  We then left her to her own devices.  On Friday she was very busy.  I worked all day Saturday and during the day, Bill mentioned that Queen Maggie was very quiet.  On Sunday I finally had the opportunity to check the bees out myself.It was very, very quiet...too quiet for such a large colony so I opened her up.

Gone!  Queen Maggie had flown the coop with all her subjects...her wanderlust had not been appeased apparently.  So she is out there somewhere making a "better" home and I am back to 2 hives again.

It's like adopting a stray cat, giving it all its shots and a cosy bed only to have it wander off to the neighbour's house!

The same thing happened to the Chair of our Beekeeping Association so I don't feel so-o-o bad...but still...sheesh.

PS:  Albert, the original owner of the bees says that I should have put a frame of brood from another hive with the swarm and then they wouldn't have left because they would have taken care of the brood.  Next time.  :)

Introducing Queen Olivia!

June 12, 2913

I have a name for my Australian Queen!  She has been christened Queen Olivia.  Just in case you think she is named after our dog, Olive you would be wrong.   I opened her up for the first time this afternoon and actually managed to find the queen.  Here she is with her retinue.

Queen Olivia...can't miss her right in the middle!

It was very exciting to find her but it was very easy since there are not that many bees in this hive yet.  In this next picture you will see that I have become braver in the bee yard as I have no gloves on!

Look!  Bare hands!

I opened up Queen Mab as well and found that the bees had been building a lot, but all in the second box,  I decided to switch the boxes to get them to fill in the other one.   Perhaps the top opening I have has made them like being upstairs better than downstairs.

New comb being built

Drone brood and capped honey

My next posting will be about the wonderful Queen Rearing Workshop I attended on the weekend but it will be fairly dense and educational, so I thought I'd just give you a few pictures of the two hives to let you know things are going well in the bee yard.  

My new Australian bee hive

June 4, 2013

Two beehives in my beeyard!

We picked up hive #2  from John in Burgessville on June 1 in the morning.  The queen is an Australian-Italian bee.  John has been having a tough time with the pesticides affecting his bees but my hive seems extremely healthy.  The bees are already building comb on the open frames that I provided to John.  The centre frames in the hive are plastic foundation and are completely covered in capped brood.

As soon as we got home, I opened the hive to add another box of frames with some capped honey to keep them fed.  This was timely since it rained and rained over the weekend and was so cold the bees stayed home.   All this hive needs now is a name.

I am very happy to have  2 hives in the beeyard again.  The Australian's workers are very orange whereas Queen Mab's workers are very black...maybe Russian genes.  It will be very interesting to see the difference in the two hives.

Queen Mab's worker--very dark stripes

Australian worker--orange stripes

I walk around the property to see all the lush growth that the rain has brought and I leave you with a few images.  Happy spring!

Backlit Solomon seal

Healthy hostas with allium

Weigela in the ferns

The Best Bee Watering Hole in Town

May 28, 2013

My good friend Shawn has named my first bee hive of 2013.  Introducing Queen Mab!  A lovely nod to Shakespeare.

Some of you may remember my frustration with the bees and water over the last two seasons.  No matter how beautiful the watering hole was (in my opinion), the bees insisted on finding their water elsewhere...probably in some poor child's swimming pool!  This year I was determined to keep the bees happy and drinking at home :).  I did notice that the bees tended to congregate at a cement rhubarb leaf bird bath last year. They loved the veins since they could drink from them without getting the rest of their bodies wet.  It happened that I had a round cement rhubarb leaf  exactly the same size of the water barrel that we had bought for the bees.  The water is pumped up over some rocks onto the leaf.  It pools into the centre of the leaf and then runs through the veins back into the barrel.  The bees love it!

Cement rhubarb leaf fits exactly into the barrel

 There are dozens of bees on this watering hole constantly.  It makes me smile to see them.

The veins of the leaf are perfect watering areas for the bees

So the bees have water.  They are collecting pollen and nectar from the flowering trees.  The bees are very busy and happy. It's a good start.

New bees, new hope

May 22, 2013

Me with my first hive of 2013

I received my new bees from Dave Gale last night!  He breeds his own queens so this is an Ontario queen.  Genetically a bit of Buckfast, an English bee and whatever else flies around his home on the east edge of London.   It looks like a very healthy hive.

The pick up of this hive was slightly bitter sweet as Dave has lost 100 hives in the two weeks since I dropped off my box to be filled.  His hives that are situated at his home are fine due to "pesticide-free" London but most of his hives are in farm country where the fields are being planted.  His bees probably came in contact with the famous and terrible pesticides we have all been hearing about, neonicitinoids.  He still honoured our deal for a nuc and so I have his queen and bees and plan on taking very good care of them.  Dave has been getting calls from as far away as Manitoba and Michigan from hopeful beekeepers looking for healthy queens since everyone is having trouble this spring.

I am still waiting for my second hive which will come from John Van Blyderveen in Burgessville.  He has imported his queens from Australia but he is also struggling with a major loss of his bees...probably 100 hives as well.  It is a tough time for beekeepers and their bees if they are in the country.  Ironically, urban bees might have a better chance of it.

I am excited to start beekeeping again.  I will try to beekeep naturally, without chemicals.  I will feed the bees with capped honey on frames that I saved from last year and use open frames to let the bees build cells their own size and not what humans have prescribed.  There's my mantra.  This blog will let you know how I do.

Happy Spring to everyone!

PS:  My Ontario queen needs a name and when the Australian queen arrives, she will too.  Send me your suggestions please!

Happy Easter!

March 31, 2013

Spring is coming!  And here is the proof...all the cats were lolling about in the sun yesterday...my neighbour's croci and snow drops are up and I am dreaming about bees again.

I have organized the purchase of two nucs (small hive consisting of a few frames with a queen, some brood and some workers) from two different beekeepers.  One is in Burgessville.  John imports his queens from Australia and he will build me a shallow nuc which will I pick up in the middle of May.  The other is here in London.  Dave raises his own queens and I will be picking up my nuc from him in the middle of June.  This is so exciting.  I have missed walking back to the beeyard to check out the bees every morning before going to work.  It is so sad to look at the empty beeyard with its cinder blocks just sitting there.  Now I have something to look forward to again.

In the meantime, I have been reading many articles about the plight of bees all around the world.  The role of pesticides in fatalities of bees is being disputed by the manufacturers and governments are loath to go after these powerful giants, Bayer, Syngenta and Monsanto.  It is a complicated and difficult story and it is generally being ignored by the public.  Until it becomes clear that it is not only the bees that are being affected (which in itself a frightening scenario) but also humans, this story will not be taken up as an important one.  I am adding some links to stories on pesticides for you to take a look at.

http://ww.emcwestcarleton.ca/20130307/lifestyle/Taking+on+the+pesticide+company+likely+to+honeybee+collapse

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmenvaud/writey/668/contents.hm

http://www.bouldercountybeekeepers.org/dr-henk-a-tennekes-the-catastrophic-effects-of-neonicotinoids-on-insects-and-birds/

And finally, a study from Guelph that was funded by Bayer...fox amongst the chickens syndrome...sadly, here in Canada!

http://www.producer.com/daily/ontario-field-study-finds-no-link-between-seed-treatments-bee-deaths/


Do not be surprised if beekeepers take to the streets!

So I am getting ready to have bees again in the midst of the crisis that is facing bees and other pollinators.  I am feeling optimistic since I know so much more and I believe that urban bees have a better chance of surviving due to the "lack" of pesticides in the city.  This is the eternal optimism of the beekeeper I think.

Happy New Year

Jan 7, 2012

Happy New Year!  It's been awhile since I wrote.  I have been very busy with work and family but I also haven't had the heart to update you on my bee yard happenings.

A couple of weeks after my last post it became quite unseasonably warm outside.  Of course I had to go check out the last remaining hive to see how Queen Latifah was doing.   It was such a lovely day, the bees should have been very busy.  There was no activity.  I knew before I opened her up that all was not well.

Last cluster of bees

The bees in this picture are all dead with their heads in the cells.  They probably starved even though there was honey to be had because they had to stay together to remain warm.  Heartbreaking.  I sent this photo to my beekeeper friend and he suggested sending it to the Provincial Apiarist to look at just in case they had died as a result of pesticide poisoning.  I knew that their demise was more likely the result of being overcome by mites but I did send it along.  I had a great conversation with Paul Kozak, Provincial Apiarist and was very open with him about not using treatments.  He didn't castigate me...simply said that it was hard to do and wished me luck.

I went to the monthly meeting of the Beekeepers Association and told them my sad tale of woe and again, there was no judgment, just nodding and wishing me luck.  Beekeepers are so angry and worried about the pesticide issues that they are becoming more understanding of wacky trials of working differently.  I remember being so very smug at the top of the summer when my bees were doing so well and the other beekeepers had lost so many hives over the winter.  No smugness now!  

So what is next?  I am planning on starting over!   I will get nucs (small hives) that are made in shallow frames so they will fit into my small hives.  I am planning on ordering bees from two different breeders so that I can compare them. I still won't use treatments.  I saved a bunch of frames of honey for the new bees so I can feed  them that to avoid using sugar syrup.  I am ready to do it again since I feel that I have learned so much in my first two seasons of beekeeping.  I am still a novice beekeeper but I am very excited to give this another go.  

I promise to keep writing about my ongoing adventures in beekeeping.  And if anything interesting comes up in the meantime, you might hear from me.  In the meantime, best wishes for 2013 to all of you!

Tumbleweed in the snow behind ironwork.