Although I know it’s a fluke this early, but there is a nip of coolness in the air. What a welcome relief from the blistering heat we’ve had recently. I decided that it was a perfect day to look in on the girls. Today we’re beginning our fall preparations. Some of the hives look great, and some not so much so. My goal is to get them beefed up enough to get through the winter to next spring. I’ll be saving several frames of honey from this year to feed them if I need to early next spring.

Brooks 1
The last time I checked on this one, I thought it was a goner. No queen, and tons of drones. Multiple eggs sloppily laid – all pointed to a laying worker. To my astonishment, I opened the box this morning to find the number of workers increasing and a working queen laying out a pretty solid egg pattern. How that happened, I have no idea. None. I’m grateful, but perplexed. Added 1/2 a megabee patty and 1/2 gallon of syrup.

Brooks 2
Still a dead out.

Brooks 3
Brood in various stages, but didn’t see queen. Added 1/2 patty megabee and 1/2 gallon of syrup. I’d like to see this one put more stores on.

Brooks 4
Pretty good and perfectly staged for the fall honey flow. The top deep is full end to end with perfectly drawn, empty comb. Same regiment as the others with megabee and syrup. Saw some eggs in the top super, but nothing significant. Most of the action seems to be down below.

Brooks 5
One of the strongest hives. I saw several bees still working honey in the honey super I left on from the spring. Didn’t see a need to add any supplements at this time.

Nuc 1
Pretty much the same as last time. 3 strong frames of bees. I split the brood nest with a frame of freshly drawn comb from Brooks 4 in hopes that the queen would expand her laying. Same addition of megabee and syrup.

Brooks 6
Looks really good. Chuck full of bees and honey. Didn’t add any syrup, but they did get 1/2 a megabee patty.

Brooks 7 and 8
These are doing okay, but are going to need to beef up before winter. Each had 4-5 frames of bees and mediocre stores. Added syrup and megabee. These two may get combined – possibly with the Nuc thrown in too. Wintering Nucs can be challenging.

We’ve managed the mite levels pretty well this year, but I’m going to try using one of the essential oil based varroa treatments this fall to knock the mites down more than just using a powdered sugar program. Probably looking at apilife var.

So yeah guilty as charged. It’s been a while since I’ve had time to post a hive log, but I figure that since we’re about to roll into the fall busy season it’s a good time to pick up the torch.

Some background:

The Peachtree City yard is no more. There was only one hive there, and while it was pretty robust in terms of overall health, it was not productive at all – nothing in the super in the spring. I suspect that was largely due to another sizable bee yard being less than a mile away. So I moved it to the Brooks yard, which is actually at my house. I’m thinking that and the Woolsey yard will be the only ones going forward for the foreseeable future.

So without further delay –

Hive updates –
Brooks 1
Popped this one open and there were tons of drones – which generally means one of two things – a laying worker or a drone laying queen. I didn’t see the queen, but I did see eggs sloppily laid. I believe it to be a laying worker – indicating that the hive has been queenless for a while. In either case, the hive is doomed unless it’s requeened. Unfortunately, requeening a hive with a laying worker is difficult. There were two queen cells – one of which was capped, but under the premise of a laying worker and the time it takes a queen to hatch out, there is very little chance that those cells have fertilized eggs in them. My intention is to do a shook swarm and requeen it. The idea behind a shook swarm is that you take all the bees out to field a few hundred yards away and shake them off the field. The idea is that the laying worker is too heavy to fly back and she gets left out in the field. When the rest of the hive returns, a new queen cage is in there and hopefully they take to her.

Brooks 2
Dead out. This hive is toast and filled with wax moths. This was a hive that deaded out before and I restarted with a few frames from a nuc. It concerns me that it’s croaked twice so I suspect some kind of contamination in the wax or hardware. I don’t have enough bees to restart it right now and time is running out to get a new hive going and prepped for the fall. We’ll see. If I do get it going again, it will be on all new hardware and foundation – and will probably used only to combine with another smaller hive.

Brooks 3
Looks ok, but should be in much better shape. Found the queen, but she was very small and gimpy looking. Gonna requeen this one.

Brooks 4
This one looks good – solid brood nest with a good egg pattern. It’s a single deep, and it starting to get some honey in the super. Probably wouldn’t hurt to requeen this one before the fall honey flow to beef up production going into the fall. This one may be a candidate to combine with Brooks 3 later on.

Brooks 5
Solid colony – probably the best looking of the bunch. There were ants in the jar super which I moved out.

Brooks 6
This is the former PTC hive, and is doing better already – showing alot of honey storage in the 2nd deep and even some storage in the honey super. The only problem is that the foundation strips in the honey super have gotten all wonky since the spring so they were building comb all over the place. I pulled the super and am going to redo the foundation on the frames before putting it back on there.

Brooks 7
This one looks pretty good for a single deep started in late summer. There were about 5 solid frames of bees and a large consistently laid broodnest. With a little feeding, this one should beef up by the fall.

Brooks 8
Just about the same as Brooks 7, but with fewer bees. Gonna start feeding these to get them beefed up for the winter.

Nuc 1
This was a split from a colony that was requeened, and was later used (unsuccessfully) to bolster the population of Brooks 2. It’s presently got three frames of bees with a 2 frame broodnest so I think it’s recovering well.

A longer look at doing some hive manipulations. In this BubbaTube, we open up a hive with all intention of swapping brood supers, but get a surprise in the process. We also replace some hardware that has come to the end of its life.

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Today I’ll be swapping around supers at the Brooks and Woolsey beeyards. This is a swarming control technique that supposedly keeps the colony from feeling crowded. The idea is that bees constantly move up in the colony through the winter as they consumes their winter stores. By the spring, the bottom of the colony is basically empty. By swapping the top and the bottom supers, we open up another super of space above for the colony to move into.

I’ll also be putting honey supers on these hives. It takes a while for the bees to “get” that their hive has changed sizes and move up into the super. We’ve already got a light nectar flow going, which will quickly pick up in the next few weeks, so I want them up in there drawing comb ahead of the game.

My supers have top entrances too. I’m a big fan of top entrances for two reasons. They provide additional ventilation, but the air isn’t pulled up directly through the broodnest, and it gives the foragers a direct route to the honey stores – meaning they don’t have to walk all the way up the inside of the colony to get where they’re going.

It’s been a little over a month since it was last warm enough to pop in and see how the girls are doing. Today when it broke 52 degrees, I conducted a brief spring inspection at the Brooks yard.

Brooks 1 – Bit the dust. The pollin patty was about 90% intact, and there was still syrup in the feeder. The (now dead) cluster was down to the size of a fist so I can only imagine that they never warmed up enough to break cluster and get some grub. Pisser.

Brooks 2 – Looks really good. Patty was completely consumed and feeders were empty. Cluster spanned 5 frames and was the depth of the super (bees were active all the way to the bottom of the frame). Brood pattern was very good, with larve in all stages of development. Added 2nd deep using drawn comb from the now deceased Brooks 1. Put 2 patties between hive bodies and topped off feeders with 2:1 syrup.

Brooks 3 – In good shape. Patty was completely consumed. Both feeders were empty. Cluster was large – spanning 6 frames. Brood pattern looked good with brood in all stages of development.
Maintenence Needed: The top deep super is rotting out on the left side and needs to be replaced.

Brooks 4 – Still Dead.

Brooks 5 – Similar to Brooks 3. Patty was consumed and both feeders were empty. Topped off both feeders with 2:1 syrup. Cluster was large and busy spanning 6 frames. Lots of brood. Added another patty on top bars.
Maintenence Needed:Screened bottom board and bottom deep need to be replaced.

I’ve read over on Linda’s Beekeeping blog that the Red Maple is already blooming. We have some red maples and I can’t report that, but they look darn close. Time to get the honey supers ready – fingers crossed.

Cold as hell today, but it’s only going to get colder the rest of the week so it was either today or wait till next week to get pollen patties on the hives. I made a few yesterday from 2:1 syrup and megabee. Each of the hives got one except for the one in PTC. That one got two since it’s more of a drive for me, but also it’s still looking pretty strong as well. I also got the last two hives wrapped in 30# felt paper as well – so that’s all good.

All in all the hives looked pretty healthy. The cluster was a pretty good size and they seemed pretty defensive when I opened the top ( I guess I would be too!). But that’s a good sign. I didn’t want to linger with it being so cold out, but it looked like all the hives still had what looked like plenty of capped stores. It’s too early to say of course, but I’m hoping that I can come out in the spring without any losses. (fingers, toes, and elbows crossed!)

Honey Run Apiaries has some good reading on how to make pollen patties in case you’re curious.

till next time…

The first log of the year and it couldn’t bee (wink) better timing. Today is pollin patty day. It’s supposed to be be seriously cold over the next few days. I swapped out the bee-koozies for 30lb roofing paper and the hive temp seems to get higher during the sunny times of the day. Syrup consumption seems higher as well. Today I used the last of my megabee pollen substitute to make up some pollin patties which I’m going to get on the hives this afternoon. Megabee is far and away the best pollen substitute on the market in my opinion. I have some family coming over for dinner so I probably won’t be able to get over to the other hives this afternoon, but that’s on the list for tomorrow.

Vegetable Garden

Here’s a pic of the vetable garden starting to grow in.  The Brooks beehives can be seen in the far background.

One of the perks of keeping bees is that your plants get heavily pollinated.  Here’s a blackberry bush that sits about 100 feet from 7 hives in my back yard.  It never had a chance.  We’ve already picked pounds of berries off this plant, and it looks like it’s not giving up anytime soon.

I’m thinking blackberry jam!  Yummy!

Synopsys

I continue to have numerous problems with hives going queenless causing me to have to pull brood frames from other healthy hives to allow them to raise a new one.  This practice is not sustainable.  I don’t know why all these queens are failing – hives look completely healthy otherwise.  I’ve setup 2 Nucs at the Brooks yard – split from two of the better hives to suplement the queen rearing needs.  PTC and Woolsey yards seem to be most affected by this phenominon – which is funny because they are in very rural locations and have abudant forage.

I’ll be running a bucket of sugar syrup & mega-bee out to PTC and Woolsey tomorrow to supplement the forage and hopefully encourage the queenless hives to do a better job replacing their queen.

PTC 1

Looks good.   4 Frames of bees – lots of brood.  No SHB.  Treated with powdered sugar.

PTC 2

Not so good.  2 Frames of bees.  No Brood or eggs.  More queen problems.  Pulled a frame of brood from PTC 1.

PTC 3

Again – no brood.  Pulled brood frame from #4 Not Cool.

PTC 4

Looks ok.  Not going gangbusters, but there were brood and eggs.

PTC 5

Looks ok.  Brood and eggs, but spotty pattern.

Fayetteville 1

Doing great.  Lots of brood and eggs.  Treated with powdered sugar.  No SHB.

Fayetteville 2

Good eggs and brood.  3 frames of bees.  No SHB.  Treated with powdered sugar.

Fayetteville 3

Good eggs and brood.

Brooks 1

Most of the brood that was in the honey super has since hatched out.  Looks like I lucked out and the queen was in the bottom deep when I put the excluder on last week.  The bees are moving into the honey super and reusing the old brood cells for honey storage.  So far 4 frames are drawn out, but none capped over yet.

Brooks 2

Ready for 2nd deep.  Pulled 2 frames brood and honey and split off Nuc.  Replaced frames with foundation.

Brooks 3

Looks good.  Bees have moved up into the 2nd deep and have begun to draw out comb.

Brooks 4

No real change.  Some activity in honey super, but no comb drawn out.  Bottom deep is full of bees.

Brooks 5

This is probably the most enthusiastic queen I’ve ever seen.  Pulled 2 frames and started Nuc.  Replaced frames with foundation.

Brooks 6

New nuc colony for purposes of queen raising.  Split from Brooks 2

Brooks 7

New nuc colony for purposes of queen raising.  Split from Brooks 5.