Winter is coming

For winter this year all my bees will go into the bee house, including the 3 remaining nucs, except the swarm hive I caught Aug. 1st. I have added feeders and am feeding all the hives as this has not been a great year with all the rain we've had.  The hive that I am keeping at Staten Island is the Aug. swarm.  It is strong and has honey in both the upper and middle boxes of the octagon hive.  I gave all the hive's a dose of oxalic acid on Nov. 1,  The strongest hive had the most drops but none had too many.  My Sept. count was 2 per 100 bees in the worst hive.  We'll have to wait till spring to see how they do.  Later

Hive check 7/24

Looked into my nucs today, its been a week since I switched upper boxes and I wanted to see if there was any changes.  The heavy box I thought I could harvest some honey but it seems there is new brood in the upper chamber so I left it for later.  Lots of honey tho, just on the upper parts of the frames.  The second box, which I suspected of being queen-less, still had some old unhatched brood in the upper chamber.  Checked the lower chamber and to my surprise, there was newly capped brood.  I must have brought the queen from the previous switch.  That hive is fixed, now to watch the other.  Did not look for a queen cell in hive No1 so will monitor, although both hives bringing in pollen, a good sign.

Moved hives north.

Spraying for West Nile virus starts tomorrow so today I took 3 of the 5 nucs north and set them up on the property.  The small swarm I caught last week seems queen-less so I installed 3 frames of brood, larvae and eggs (I hope as I can't see that well) from the strongest hive.  Now its a waiting game to see if they make a queen cell.  If not I'll try again.  Nothing tried, nothing gained.

Nuc monitoring

Yesterday I opened up the nuc where I had placed one of the larger swarms.  I had placed a comb of bees and brood in it on Sunday and wanted to see how it was progressing.  They have built quite a bit of new comb and in it there were eggs and larvae which means they have a queen and she seems to be laying good patterns.  Now the question is?  Is this the swarm queen? or did I accidentally move the queen with the frame I installed.  A check of the other hive in 5 days will reveal if they are making a queen cell.  The really small swarm I caught Monday is bringing in lots of pollen which is a good sign also.  Will check its progress next week.  Have no more comb to spare right now so they are on their own.  Lots of time left in the season.

Hive check at the farm

Drove up to the farm to mow the lawn and see how the bees are doing since I installed the push in queen cage on Monday.  When I pulled the frame I could see that they had eaten through the back of the comb to get to the queen.  Found several dead bees in the cage but no queen in the pile.  Searched the whole hive but could not see her, even though she is marked.  The bees were bunching all over the place, so I tried to separate them to no avail.  Found lots of pupae in the cells so I guess she's okay.  The other two hives are going strong.  If they expand any more, I think I will split one of them, as I might do to the last swarm I just caught.  We'll see in a week or two.

Hive inspections and split

Today with the help of a friend, We pulled the covers on all five nucs to assess their hardiness.  The first we intended to split so took off the top box and placed it on a new bottom board, than replaced the cover.

We then went to hive # 2, a newly caught swarm which was queen-less, and installed a new queen in her cage an closed it back up.  The third hive was also a swarm but much larger, they were adjusting nicely to their new surroundings and had built up almost 2 whole frames of comb in 2 days, so I added another box under and closed it up.  The last was a purchased nuc which was light when I bought it ( another hired hand had carried it to the car).  An earlier inspection had showed the queen had a random laying pattern and I had expected to replace her, but the last queen I had was going to my friends hive.  Upon inspection, the hive had perked up and their was brood on all frames and they had begun to store honey.  It has been so wet and cold this spring I felt the hive would do well and would assess the queen later.  Finally,  We pulled a frame of brood with some honey and installed a push in queen cage and installed the last queen.  This we placed in a nuc box and my friend will install it in his hive as his hive is queen-less.  We will check on it in a week and see how it is progressing.  With the push-in cage, she can begin laying right away and as the brood hatches, they can attend to business as usual without fear of her being killed.  If a working layer is in the hive, she will be suppressed from laying by the pupae in the introduced frame.  Big morning and only one sting where I pinched a bee. 

Package DOA

Today while feeding the hives I found the first hive dead out.  The queen must have gotten the Nosema and never rebounded.  Only a few bees left.  Thank you Hudson Valley Bee Supply for all your support.  Oh, that's right, you said tough shit.

2nd inspection after queen cell replacement

Yesterday I checked to see if the queens were bred and found that both were and were laying nice patterns.  No 1 hive seems to have no queen and is failing.  Hope it can survive until I can add a frame or catch a swarm.  Fed all the bees.

1st Inspection of the AZ hive.

Today I went north to feed the bees and remove the queen cell caps and check for progress. The new cells just opened on Friday so its to soon to check on them, but the No.1 hive could have had some progress.  To my dismay, it was lagging behind the others so I took out the frames and placed them in the upper box as I had done with the other 2.  We'll see how that goes.  Anxious about working the bees inside the house, because of the closeness and not knowing what the bees would do and if they came out, how to get them back.  But a few whiffs of smoke and they were as gentle as could be and no bees came out.  The ones that road out the frames and fell off just walked back into the hive.  I'm liken it.

The big mess from the Nosema seems to have subsided as no bees were seen on the ground and the fronts of the hives were clean.  Glad that mess is over for now, as if Hudson Valley Bee Supply could care.  Still not a lot of bees in any of the hives, hope they can last out until the Carniolan queens get here.

Starting over again

Last Sat, the 21 st of April I went up to get my 3 packages and then took them to the bee farm and installed them.  The next Monday I went up to check on the food supply and discovered that they may be infected with Nosema, a stomach fungal disease that makes them defecate all over the front of the hive.  I gave them more food and then went home to make up some medication (a mixture of Tea tree oil and Wintergreen oil)  which I added to a gal of sugar syrup.  I cleaned up some, and then checked on the queens, to see if they had been let out.  The bees had built comb completely over the cage making it impossible for the queen to get free so I had to cut out the queen cages.  As soon as I did, the queen and the attendants scrambled out of the cage, 2 of them may have escaped.  I went to Monroe NJ on Weds. morning and picked up 2 queen cells to install in the suspect boxes, picked up my bottom trays which I had made up and headed back north.  Bees dead everywhere by the thousands with some still alive crawling around unable to fly due to K-wing, another symptom of Nosema.  I installed the new queen cells and then headed to Hudson Valley Bee Supply, where I purchased the packages to show them evidence on the package boxes (shit everywhere literally).  I told him that I suspected Nosema and had lost 1/4th of my bees.  He shook his head and said, "that's too bad, but they should have time to build up."  I would have thought he be more concerned with his customers, and that he may have others out there with the same problem.  If you are reading this and have this problem, let me no so we can approach them en mass.  Fill you in later.

New bee house complete

Finished up the bee house on Friday and then Sat. morning began the haul north to the "farm".

On the way the trailer spring broke which then blew out the tire so I had to make an exit off the thruway.  Luckily there was a tire sales place within 10 blocks so on the rim I hauled.  Of course they didn't handle my size tire so I had to drive (leaving the trailer)  and get a new tire and a rim.  Of course on the way was a parade which caused me a 2 hour delay, but I made it there and back in 2 1/2 hours.  Fixed the tire and then that's when I found the broken spring, so I told the store manager, who was helping, to raise the trailer up and I put in 2 short sections of 2X4's to hold it up.  He just shook his head and said he hoped I wasn't going to far.  All done I asked how much? and he just said, Happy Fathers day.

Are we killing our bees with kindness

Last week when it was raining, I watched for the umpteenth time, "More than Honey".  The very first time I saw it I was interested in the beekeeping methods used in the mountains of Europe, but of course, did nothing about it.  But after I lost all my hives last winter, I thought that maybe there was a better solution, so as an experiment I purchased 2 Slovenian hives and am now building a 2nd bee house. But I digress.  As I watched the documentary this time, my attention was attracted to one of the bee keepers from, what looks like Texas, talking about how his bees have become Africanized and how aggressive they had become.  But, along with there manageable aggression, he states that his mite and beetle problems have disappeared.  This then got me thinking on the subject of queen rearing and how ( because we are such pussies) they are working harder and harder to develop strains of bees that are more and more gentle.  The bees it seems, have now become so gentle that they could give a shit on who or what has invaded the hive.  For me, I work without a suit and when the bees don't want me around, they let me know.  I for one, would rather a few stings than deal with all the other problems.  By the way, last year I found 1 mite in all of my drop boards in all 7 of my hives.  Later

First swarm caught this season.

I had set up my trap behind Debra's house a week ago and checked it Friday.  It had a large amount of activity so I picked up my wife from the ferry and after a beer, it was dark enough to close up the entrance.  Any bees not making it back could go to the original hive and live.

Got back just at dark so I decided to just transfer the frames into one of the Octagons.  Yesterday it was cold and rainy so I fed them some honey comb and added some sugar water with HBH.  Today they are flying strong.  Will check on Thursday to see if the queen is laying.  Later

Showing my new A_Z hives to Staten Island Beekeepers

Saturday we held our annual spring meeting of the SIBA.  We discussed winter survival and what techniques were used by those who had survivals.  Almost everyone lost 1 hive, I was the clear winner with 6.  2 weeks ago I drove to NH to pick up my new A_Z hives and they became the center piece of the conversation as I demonstrated the unique features of the hive (http://www.slovenianbeekeeping.com/index-one.html.  As I was doing the demonstration I shifted to my recently populated Octagon hive and pulled the bottom tray to show how I use lime in the drop pan under the screened bottom board.  To our surprise, it was crawling with beetle larva, just as it was suppose to, but I didn't think so soon.  Only 3 weeks since I installed the package.  All I can think of was that 1 or 2 beetles must have come with the package.  I killed the only beetle I saw and all the larva were dried up by this morning.  I think the lime works better than Diatomaceous earth, and a lot less expensive.  I sprinkled a little more lime in and will inspect again later in the week.  My new package upstate at my new property is doing great in the Top Bar hive but I am going to switch it over to the new AZ hive later if it ever warms up.  I am presently working on a portable 10 box unit to take upstate.  With wheels, they can't tax me for having a structure on the property.  Later

The picture shows my 2 AZ hives stacked on top of each other with a shed built around them.  The access doors are in the back.  If interested, watch this video   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MitGad0qU4

Slovinian AZ hives

Staten Island Honey for sale

AZ hive buildings for sale.  Custom sheds, built to order or per-designed.   Call  464-201 2461

Final cleanup

Just finished cleaning out all the hives.  2 had very small clusters in the center which looked like they froze during the cold snap we had.  All the others were empty of bees, less a few dead on the bottom board.  None had any full brood cells.  All hives were full of honey which is a bear to strain as it is so viscus this time of year.  My 1st swarm hive of the spring had 2 and 1/2 boxes of honey, but all hives had enough for winter survival.  I found 1 beetle larvae and only a couple of beetles dead inside the hives, the most, surprisingly were in the strongest hive.

Just ordered 2 packages, I said I wouldn't but since I caught no swarms last year, I thought it would be prudent.

Crocus were in full bloom this week, they seemed lonely without the bees.  Later

Total loss

Just got back from our annual trip to Key West and it looks as though all my bees just up and left during the warm spell in Dec.  No dead bees in 2 of the hives and no activity in the last 3, so I'll be setting traps at friends home's this spring.  There is a slim hope that they just remained inside the hive the last warm day and didn't come out.  Will just have to wait till spring to see.  Later

Winterizing the yard

Today I put the final touches on insulating the hives.  I kept one hive un-insulated for comparison next spring to see if it is all worth it.  I removed the top box from the hive I combined (No 6) as the bees had moved down and no honey had been stored in it so its less area for them to keep warm.  Still unsure if this hive will make it or not, although it seem active at the moment.  I set out some sugar water with HBH for the bees and hordes of yellow jackets showed up for the feast, so now I have to make a trap for them.  Other than that, not much happening.  Time to start cleaning up the summers mess.

                                                                                                                                                                       
Decided to buy some cardboard nuc boxes for next spring.  Keep my yard to 7 hives and let the swarms move into the nucs for sale later.

Put a piece of dryer sheet inside a disk case in the hive just above the top bars as I had read it works for controlling beetles.  Checked the drop pan 2 days later to find a dozen or so dead ones.  I had placed lime  dust in the pan too, so not sure which is working.

Combined two hives

After much thought about the pro's and cons of joining two weak hives, I decided on putting them together today.  Each on its own was doomed to fail this winter so, after remembering my first hive to survive the winter 2 years ago by a combination of 3 weak hives, I decided to try and save at least one.  They were both from small swarms which I should have put together last spring, but a little greed seeped into my veins and now I will probably pay the piper.  I also added a shim with bars to the green hive.  This is one of the two that suffered from my experiment of 2 years ago by not placing bars in every box, that was a bad move but we only learn from our mistakes.   Added another box under hive No. 1 as it was almost full of comb to the bottom and top box full of honey.  This was a swarm hive so will not harvest from it.  It is almost to the wintering weight of 30lbs.   As of today I think that 4 of the 7 are heavy enough to survive the winter.  1 is close and the last which I combined today, I will probably have to feed in late Oct.  Later

Meetup

Yesterday I hosted our Staten Island Bee keeping Meetup group for a brunch meeting.  Had a great time and learned a few things.  Gave a tour of my gardens and apiary also.  By the way, I'm hosting an apiary tour and short lecture on natural bee-keeping methods on Sat. Sept. 12th between 11 and 2. All are welcome and its free.  E-mail me for directions.  sneeho@aol.com