The weather has been crazy for the last few days since I wrote in this blog. It has ranged from 30 degrees and very humid to a chilly 10 degrees in the day time. Our heating came on a couple of times and the decision on what to wear every morning was a very calculated one...and usually wrong. During this odd weather, the bees' activities changed drastically with each change. When it was very hot they all congregated on their front stoops madly thrumming their wings to keep cool. When it was cold, they simply stayed indoors which was very wise.
Happily, the weather is finally settling down and today it was sunny, not too windy and a perfect day for me to go into the hives for the very first real hive check. Why go into the hive at all, you ask? Well, I went in for a few reasons. Managing bees in the modern world is no longer just having a bunch of hives and leaving them alone until it's time to rob the honey. These days there are many pests, viruses and diseases that the bees can get. So I have to watch out for them. As well, I need to watch for signs of swarming and try to avoid that happening. As a neophyte, even though I am looking, I am not sure what I am seeing so I may still end up with one or all of these problems.
So the reasons I went into the hive included: trying to find the queens to make sure they were doing their jobs laying eggs, seeing how many frames were being worked on (drawn out) and checking the sheet under the screened bottom for mites.
I opened Queen Elizabeth I first. Under the lid, again, there was comb full of honey that I had to clean up. I felt extremely clumsy and did in a bunch of bees as I cleaned up. Drowned them in their own honey...a terrible death...I will definitely have to do something about the space in the lid since they like it so much. For the readers who know even less then I do about bees...there is something called bee-space. It cannot be more than 3/8" wide or the bees will fill it with comb and it cannot be less than 1/4" wide or they will fill it with something very sticky called propolis. I will save the story of how this was discovered in a future, extremely academic posting. Suffice to say, my lids give the bees more space than that so they are most insistent on filling it up. Since I want them to do all the work in the frames, I will have to solve this issue.
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| Opening Queen Elizabeth I |
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| Comb on underside of lid |
Once this mess was cleaned up, I started taking out the frames one by one to examine them. It was amazing to see how they had built comb up in the new frames and multiplied, multiplied, multiplied! There are so many bees! Even after the clumsy clean up, the bees still went about their business ignoring the bonehead decimating their ranks. I think I have very gentle bees...hope they stay that way. Here are pictures of the beautiful frames in QEI.
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| New frame covered in worker |
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| Look at that beautiful pattern I found Their Majesties!!! Queen Elizabeth I was happily working away on the second last frame I looked at. A beautiful dark brown/golden queen worthy of her moniker. She has been working hard. Here is a picture of the frame where I found her. She is the very large bee very close to the centre and a little bit down. Very long with short wings...you can't miss her once you find her. Imagine laying about 1000-2000 eggs a day. I will tell you more about the queen in my academic post...I know you all can't wait for that one!  QEI in centre closer to the bottom When I opened Queen Hippolyta I had the same deal with comb under the lid. Less honey so not quite the same issue with clean up. I have a whole plastic bucket of wax from this mess. I might melt it down to coat the plastic foundation in the frames so the bees won't have to work so hard. I was not as good at finding Her Majesty this time so I cheated and found her afterwards in the photos that Bill took. Thank goodness I can talk Bill into chronicling this adventure since there is no way I would touch my camera with my gooey hands. The queen was found on the 2nd last frame in the hive. All the frames were looking pretty awesome with comb, brood, pollen and honey. In fact this hive is way ahead of Queen E and so I decided to add a super (another box of frames) so they could have more room. This is one of the methods to avoid them leaving in a swarm...keep them happy with where they are...this works with humans too! Here is the photo of Her Majesty Queen Hippolyta, look to the left at the bottom and you will find her. Also a picture of the hives put back together with the super added to Queen H. Looking like a regular bee yard. I will probably add a super to Queen E in a week since the weather and flowers are cooperating very well. |
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QH to the left at the bottom |
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| QEI closed up and QH with a super added. OK, so I have found the queens and they are working magnificently, I have dealt with giving more room for brood etc in QH. All I had left to do was check the bottom for mites (will tell you all about these nasty creatures another time). I pulled out the boards I have placed under the screened bottoms of the hives to see if there were any mites which had dropped down. The number of mites found tells one if the hive is in trouble or not. Yay... not one mite! Will keep checking throughout the entire summer, as well as watching for other nasty problems that bees can get.  Short story about bees and water before I sign off--a colony of bees needs about 1 litre of water per day. So that's 2 litres per day for these two hives. You can see a cement rhubarb leaf that I have been putting water in daily for their use. I added rocks so that they won't drown...pretty much all the amenities you would ever want in a 5 Star Hive. Did they use it? Never saw them in it once. Really don't know where they were getting their water. Last week I finally set out our fountain in our back yard garden. Around this fountain are planted herbs like sage, chives and oregano. Soon after setting it out I noticed a lot of bee activity around the chives. Then I noticed the bees sitting on the sage leaves sipping the bits of water being sprayed by the fountain and then they got brave and sat on the lip of the fountain. I can get really close to them with my camera now and take pictures to my heart's content. All I need is a macro lens and then National Geographic here I come...OK, maybe a local bee magazine! |
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| Fountain in our garden |
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| Honey bee on the chive blossom |
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| Honey bee sipping on edge of fountain. End of today's posting. Look forward to an academic Q & A to answer the many questions you have all been dying to ask. |
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