...leaning tower of honey

Today was the weekly check into my bees.  For the last two weeks, I have brought an extra super up to the hives thinking that Queen Penelope's hive would need a new box to move into.  She had started to lay in the second super, but I found her back in the bottom super.  She had laid about a 1/4 of a frame of brood.  There were still 3 frames that the bees had not started to draw out honey comb.  They recommend waiting until 6 of 8 are drawn out.  So, no new super for Penelope.

When I went into Queen Gertrude's hive, all of the frames in the second super had been drawn out. They are on a roll.  It is shocking that she is doing so well seeing as Gertrude's hive was so low on numbers, and she was replaced so late (a good two weeks after Penelope). I'm chalking it up to stealing brood from Penelope, and therefore delaying new workers being born in that hive. Queen Gertrude has taken the lead with 3 supers high.

Queen Gertrude on the left has taken the lead in height. There are an extra 2 supers on top of her stack for storage.  She is only living in 3 of the supers. 

...introducing Queen Gertrude

Queen Gertrude was released from her cage today and has already begun laying. She is easy to spot because she has a bright red mark on her back!

Also, I have been battling wax moths this year. Not sure why they have been so bad, but I have had to remove a frame and put it in the freezer to kill wax moth larvae the last two times I have been in the hive. It may be because I have slightly weakened colonies due to my queen drama. Wax moths can cause irreversible damage to a wax foundation. They build tough webs in the wax foundation making it difficult for the bees to repair. Here is a photo of wax moth damage. I caught mine very early so a photo of mine would just look like little worms. I will spare you a photo of that. They are gross.

...off with her head part 2

Because Queen Cassandra wasn't laying any worker bees, the supplier suggested that I replace her. He provided a new marked queen for me to replace her with. Replacing her is the equivalent to locating her, killing her, and then putting the new queen in the hive. I was so nervous about finding Queen Cassandra again. I haven't been that great at spotting queens, but now that I have had to so many times this season, I think I have it down. I found her with very little difficulty. I can't say the same for catching her. For some reason, I was terrified to grab her. I didn't want to squish her or pull off her wing; although, I planned to chop her head off when I got her out of the hive. I followed her around the frame for 2 minutes trying to grab her. She was just too fast. So I brushed her onto the ground, and scooped her up in a cup...very novice of me. Smashing this bee seemed so counterintuitive. You spend all your time as a beekeeper trying to keep your queen alive, and I was about to kill her. It had to be done, but it was really very sad. I actually cried the whole time I smashed her and the whole time I recorded the below video. I took video because I wanted to share the pumping abdomen so that you all can visualize what happens when you get stung by a honey bee. It was amazing how long her abdomen pumped...probably 4 minutes or so. This is why it is so important to remove the stinger from a sting as soon as it happens. The quicker you remove the stinger; the less venom will be injected.

Queen Cassandra ended up being a drone laying queen. When I started to do some research on this topic, there were several articles talking about the queen being damaged and then laying only drones. I went back to some earlier photos of her and blew them up. Upon closer inspection, her right wing appears to be damaged.

I had to wait for 24 hours before I placed the new queen in the hive. This is so the bees realize they are queenless and don't try to kill the new queen through the queen cage or when she is released. When going into the hive, I heard the telltale sign that a hive is queenless; a roaring buzz. The below video is of the roaring hive when I first went in and video of me placing the new queen into the hive. When I place the queen in the hive, notice how the bees flock to her cage.

...don't rush me

First off, I am excited to announce that the other hive took to their queen. Queen Penelope is right at home and laying lots of new baby workers!

Queen Cassandra is taking her sweet time with laying eggs. Last week when inspecting her hive, I noticed the same roaring sound that I found in my second hive when the queen was gone. There were no fresh eggs and only capped drone cells. Bad news. I was crushed, and immediately began what I can only call freaking out. I called around to find a replacement queen, but everyone was sold out! What to do?!? Eventually, I was able to get the supplier on the phone. He calmly walked me through what I saw and how I was inspecting the bees. He also asked if the bees were still collecting pollen. They were. He said that the bees would have stopped collecting pollen if she were gone. To discover Cassandra's existence, I took a frame of fresh eggs out of Queen Penelope's hive and placed it in Queen Cassandra's hive. The bees will supersede the queen if she is hurt or missing with these new eggs.

Transferring that frame of eggs was so stressful. I looked and looked at that frame to ensure that Queen Penelope was not on it. She was just beginning to be successful, and I dreaded the fact that I was doing something that risked hurting or losing her. I smoked the frame and brushed the bees back into the hive to clear the frame of bees. I replaced the frame with a new one and took the frame with eggs to Queen Cassandra's hive.

I went into Queen Cassandra's hive today to check for queen cells or new eggs. I didn't see either or those things. The bees had capped some of the brood as workers, but there was no evidence of trying to replace the queen. As I continued through the hive, I didn't find any more brood, but I did find the elusive Queen Cassandra. So she is alive and well, but in no rush to make my life easier.

My next step is to check back for eggs or queen cells in the next few days. Below are some photos of Queen Penelope and Queen Cassandra.

...off with her head

About two weeks ago, I checked in on the queens to ensure they had been released. One Queen, Cassandra, had been properly released. The other queen was still in her cage and all of her workers had died. The sugar had not been eaten through and the dead worker bees were blocking the exit. I decided to directly release her into the hive. The bees were not clinging to her cage usually indicating that they have accepted her scent.

A week later, I went back into the hives to check for a laying queen in both hives. Queen Cassandra had been busy. There were eggs and larva filling a full frame. The other hive had no evidence of a laying queen. Not sure what happened to her, but it probably had to do with being directly released

On Tuesday, I visited the bee store. I bought a new queen and started the 45 minute trek home. By the time I had driven 30 minutes, I noticed that there was no movement in the queen cage. Upon closer inspection, all the workers were dead. The queen was alive, but I wasn't about to risk putting a queen with no workers into my hive. Back to the bee store I went. They were great and replaced the queen.

This queen and her workers made it home safe and sound. The really interesting thing about a queenless hive is the sound they make when you open the box. It is a loud roar for lack of a better term. When I placed the new queen into the middle frame, the bees moved quickly to cover her cage and the roar ceased. This is by far the coolest thing I have seen happen in a bee hive. It looked like a wave of bees just rushing to greet the new queen. I will be sure to video it if I ever have to replace a queen again.

I will be back in the hive next Monday to check on progress. Of course, I will let you all know. Below is a photo of the dead workers. You can see that they are all piled up at the bottom blocking the exit.

...welcome home!

The bees were welcomed into their new homes over the weekend. I was a little worried about the cold and dreary weather, but the sun came out and the temperature rose slightly so I went ahead and put the bees into the hives.

Getting started!

First, I sprayed the bees down with sugar water. Because it was so cold outside, I sprayed them pretty lightly. They needed about 4 hours to clean themselves before the temps dropped below 50 degrees.

I removed 2 frames to place the queen and dump the bees into.

Next, I removed the queen cage and placed it between the 2 middle frames. I had arranged the frames with comb from last year. I put 2 frames full of honey in the middle for the bees to eat. On either side of the honey frames, I placed 2 frames of empty comb/pollen for the queen to lay brood. Outside those frames, I placed a frame of honey and on the very outside, I placed half built comb and empty foundation. The bees produce wax after 15 days and need a place to put the wax so there needed to be empty foundation for them to build.

I tried a new technique to hold the queen cage in place.  A push-pin.  It worked great!

The queen is in a cage with several worker bees. There is a small removable cork that leads to a candy that the bees will eat through to release the queen. This serves as a time release for the bees to get acquainted to the queen's pheromones before she is released into the hive.

After placing the queen, I dumped the worker bees from their shipping container into the hive. I quickly covered them.

At this point, it is still too cold to feed the bees sugar water. They will feed off of the honey in the existing comb until it is warmer. In a couple days, I will go into the hive to ensure that the queen has been released and has started to lay eggs.

So happy to be home!

...brrrrrr, bees!

The bees are in, and it is freezing and rainy. Rachel and I have taken to google to figure out when we should install the bees. We will keep you all posted, but in the meantime, here are some pictures of the bee pick-up.

P.S. Get excited for the big reveal...the new Queens' names!

40,000 bees in the back seat with Kliness

Have you ever kept 20,000 bees in your kitchen?

Great photo of a bee cluster.  The bees are clustered around the queen's cage.  They do this to stay warm.

...here we go again!

You may have noticed that my posts dropped off last October. I am ready to tell the world the sad truth....I killed my bees. Unknowingly, of course, and indirectly, but nevertheless, dead.

I checked in on the hive the Saturday after Thanksgiving; they were alive. It was a beautifully warm day so we checked in on Rachel's too. They were also alive, and they were in a perfect bee cluster. Bees stay in a cluster in the winter that resembles a ball of bees. They do this to stay warm by sharing body heat.

Two weeks later, we had another warm day, and I decided to go knock on the hive to see if I heard buzzing bees inside. Tap tap. No buzz. Tap tap. No buzz. So I suited up and went in the hive....not a bee in sight. No dead bees and not a single live bee. They were gone. Flew the coop. So inadvertently, I must have done something to cause the bees to leave. Chances are they had varroa mites causing them to sense inevitable disaster and collapse of their colony. They had no choice but to leave and build a new home. It was so late in the fall that I doubt they were able to build a new hive with enough honey supplies to last through winter.

Two weeks later, Rachel's bees met the same fate. She went to look in on them. They were still in their bee cluster, but they were all dead. She shifted through the bees, and she wasn't able to find the queen.

Needless to say, we are starting over. We are going with two hives each this year to better our chances of survival. The bees will be delivered at the end of March. We needed new woodware in order to house 2 colonies of bees. Yesterday, we finished painting and priming all of our hives. Here are some photos. I look forward to sharing round 2 with you all.

R.I.P Priscilla and Gwenevere