A Swarming Good Time

It was a lovely warm day today, and we spent it with new friends Martin and Karleen and Kwee-Yan. We met Martin at the Farmers' Market this morning and then our little group snowballed when we met Kwee-Yan, who accompanied us to Martin's house where we met Karleen. Martin gave us a tour of his urban farm; we met his chickens (including Penguina) and surveyed the garden of winter vegetables. Afterward, we went over to Second St. to see Martin's new house and future headquarters of Urban Farm Livermore. Finally, we ended up at our place for coffee and a hive inspection.

When we opened the hive, we were shocked to find swarm cells. There were about five of them located on the third and fifth frames in the top box. We had been wondering when it would be time to split the hive, and I think we have our answer! It is a little nerve wrecking actually, considering that at any moment a cloud of bees might erupt from the hive and fly off into the sunset. We are going to make a split ASAP and put a lure in our top bar--my parents are delivering it tonight--so that if they decide that swarming is still a good idea, they might make their new home in the top bar.

It is really warm today--in the low seventies--so the bees are really active. With all of the talk of swarming, we thought for a moment that the extra activity around the entrance was a swarm in progress. We launched into action with our nuc box, ready to pull out the frames with the swarm cells and plunk them into a new home, hoping to stem the outflow of bees. But after a few minutes of observation, we decided that they were just enjoying the weather by getting out into the sun. We will DEFINITELY be splitting the hive tomorrow!

This seems to be a particularly good year for bees, at least with regard to swarming. A friend of ours just picked up an early swarm from a beekeeper in Santa Cruz, and our bees seem to be packing their bags as I type!

Here's what swarm cells look like for the bee-curious:

Inspection Summary and Photos (2/28/2010)

Top Box
Frame 1: Two lobes, frame 2/3 drawn out.
Frame 2: Some nectar and pollen. 40-50% both sides.
Frame 3: Three swarm cells. Brood. Little honey top right.
Frame 4: Four swarm cells. Brood. Honey top and corners, some both sides.
Frame 5: Four swarm cells. Drone brood. Honey.
Frame 6: One swarm cell. Brood and honey.
Frame 7: Very little honey and honey. Larva.
Frame 8: Frame 80-90% drawn out. Nectar.

Bottom Box
Frame 1: New comb. 40% drawn out.
Frame 2: Worker brood cells, empty.
Frame 3: Some brood.

Frame 4: Brood, empty.

Frame 5: Brood + pollen + honey.

Frame 6: Solid capped brood both sides.

Frame 7: Capped brood and honey.

Frame 8: Nectar and pollen. Comb 80% drawn out.

Here are the photos of all the frames we looked at. The swarm cells are circled in red and I counted twelve with the sense that there are others that I can't see lurking under bees....

Top Box Photographs:
Frame 1a

The Wingless Wonders Return

With the explosion of the bee population in our little colony, we're starting to see deformed wing virus again. I saw a live bee with deformed wings get carried off by one of its sisters today. I've never seen that before-- it was a little disturbing. I think it's early enough in the season to treat the bees without tainting the honey. We'll have to ask Alan about this before breaking out the thymol, and I plan to do a sticky board test this weekend.

Other spring cleaning items will be re-coating the hive bodies with boiled linseed oil and wax and splitting our colony for the first time. Very exciting.

Today, we're heading over to my dad's to put the final touches on the top bar. It just needs a roof and then it will be ready for a package! Time to order some bees I think. Tim is beginning the adventure of building a combo hive, which our current colony will soon call home.

Livermore in Bloom

The whole place has exploded in blossoms over the last couple of weeks. The plum in our driveway and the white blossomy tree in the backyard (not sure what it is) were just beginning to open their first buds when we returned from Vancouver last Monday evening. And now the whole neighborhood is in bloom. Interestingly, our bees don't seem to be taking advantage of the immediate food source--they still seem to leave the yard to find the majority of their pollen and nectar.

I'm not a great expert on plants (yet), but here is what I have noticed blooming:

almond
apple
plum
peach (apricot too, I guess)
a huge tree with clumps of yellow puff balls that seem to be covered with pollen
magnolia
the scentless pink flowers on the bushes that look like gardenias but aren't
lavender

The Boys are Back!

I've been imagining for a couple of weeks now that I've been seeing drone cells. They were lighter in color and had slightly puffier cappings than the worker cells that I was used to seeing. But today, when we briefly opened the hive to show our new friend Martin, I was left in no doubt as to what a drone cell looks like. The second frame was covered with bulging, domed drone cells! The boys are back, and it's spring!

We met Martin last week at a community meeting. He is a recent transplant from Berkeley, who has an 'urban farm' in Livermore where figs and chickens abound. He tells the tale of his urban farm and other adventures on his blog, which we highly recommend.

In other news, there's going to be a community garden at work! While riding my bike down East Ave. today, I had this genius brainstorm that we should start a community garden in some of the open space surrounding the lab. When I got to work I made the suggestion to the right people and learned that it is already in progress. Yay! Also of note is that the top bar hive is almost complete thanks to the hard work of Tim and Al (my dad). Pics to follow soon.

Busy Bees

It was a nice warm day, and we couldn't wait to get into the hive. Around 12:00 we did our inspection. There was a bit of excitement...we saw the queen and a waggle dance, Tim got stung, and I had a bee in my pants. Tim wants me to state for the record that I viciously killed the bee in my pants for fear of being stung. It's true--I smacked my leg and that was that.

The bees have been very industrious, building comb like crazy. It is new and white and a little wavy. It stays within the confines of the frames, but it kind of undulates across with thicker and thinner bits of comb.

Here is what we saw:

Top Box:

Frame 1: Two large lobes.

Frame 2: There is a one inch gap at the bottom. Otherwise completely drawn out. Small deposits of nectar and pollen.

Frame 3: Same as frame one. Larva on one side and some white cappings.

Frame 4: Fully drawn out. Full of nectar and pollen.

Frame 5: Fully drawn out except 1/2 inch at the bottom. Lots of larva.

Frame 6: Same as frame 5. Some larva and nectar.

Frame 7: Same as above. The frame felt heavy. Pollen. Honey at the top and nectar. 'The pantry.'

Frame 8: Two lobes of comb. One very large and centered with a smaller one to the side. Already being filled with nectar and pollen.

Lower Box:

Frame 1: One large lobe and one very small second lobe.

Frame 2: Fully drawn out. Some pollen and nectar.

Frame 3: Fully drawn out. Some brood and nectar.

Frame 4: Fully drawn out and completely full of capped and uncapped brood. Compact and healthy looking. Dark in color

Frame 5: Same as above.

Frame 6: Queen! Dark, empty cells. Some capped brood at the edges.

Frame 7: Capped brood and empty cells. Dark comb. Waggle dance. And a bee with deformed wings.

Frame 8: Dark comb, with solidified pollen at the bottom. Drawn out to 5/6 of frame depth. The bees were festooning.

As before here are the photographs of each frame. It's interesting to compare with the previous inspection to see how much comb the bees have built in just nine days. I make it about 3 full frames of comb. You can also compare where the capped brood is. Just open this blog a second time and arrange the windows side by side to see the changes. BTW, the queen put in an appearance on frame 6 of the bottom box.

Top Box Photographs:
Frame 1:

Hive Inspection 3rd February

The weather almost hit 65 deg. F in Livermore last Wednesday and I was keen to open the hive up to see what the bees had been up to since the second box was added. I was totally shocked to find that not only were the bees surviving but they had been busily building new honey comb. I took a movie of the whole process and from that I could extract still images of each frame.

I'm afraid I was completely hopeless at seeing what the situation was with each frame but here's my summary. The frames are number in the order they were removed with frame 1 furthest away from the house (facing south). Photographs of the frames follow on.

Top Box
Frame 1: Empty but bees hanging
Frame 2: Comb building with largest lobe approximately hand sized
Frame 3: Almost full frame of new comb with just the edges to build. Some honey.
Frame 4: Full frame of mainly uncapped honey. This was the frame that was moved up from the bottom box when the top box was added.
Frame 5: Almost full frame of new comb with just the edges to build.
Frame 6: Two big lobes of new comb, roughly filling 1/2 the frame. No honey.
Frame 7: Bees starting to build comb with the biggest lobe 1 x 2 inches.
Frame 8: Looks empty but bees hanging

Bottom Box
Frame 1: This was the empty frame from the top box. Now has two new lobes of comb covering approximately 1/6 of the frame.
Frame 2: Full frame of comb with 1/3 to 1/2 full of honey.
Frame 3: Full frame of brood comb. Looks empty but may be full of eggs. Some capped honey in the corners. Queen present left edge of side B towards the center.
Frame 4: Capped brood, maybe 1/2 full.
Frame 5: Full frame of brood comb. Looks empty but again maybe I'm missing the eggs.
Frame 6: Full frame of tight capped brood on both sides.
Frame 7: Looks like an empty frame of brood comb with 1/4 uncapped honey.
Frame 8: Mainly uncapped honey with the strange brown stuff in many cells

Top Box Photographs:
Frame 2:

Bee Movie Action

I might be getting a little trigger happy with my video camera but who's really looking at these movies (or reading the blog) anyway....

This one shows the hive entrance yesterday (BTW, if you click on the video you can make it play on the youtube site, which then allows you to make it full screen):

This one show a slow motion closeup of bees returning to the hive pollen:

And this one shows a bee returning with pollen of a more unusual colo(u)r:

Second Brood Chamber Added to the Hive

A few weeks ago Jessica and I finally made the decision to add a second brood chamber to our (her) beehive. We'd been thinking about it for a while and weren't really sure what to do. On the one hand, we thought that the bees could more easily keep a single chamber hive warm. A second brood chamber would just add a lot of dead space above the brood nest that they would need to keep warm, and were we still in January, so the weather could still get really cold. On the other hand, the hive was JAM PACKED with bees . So much so that if the telescoping lid was removed, the top of the inner cover was almost completely covered in bees. We were worried that they needed space to expand.

Eventually our cramped bees worries overcame our cold bees worries and the decision was made to add a second chamber. We waited for a reasonably warm day (62 deg. F) and went for it. The plan was just to move a frame of honey from the bottom chamber and put it in the top chamber, directly over the center of the brood nest, and put an empty frame in its place. It was difficult to get the bees out of the way to do all of this - there were just so may bees. The frame that we relocated was loaded with honey, which was great to see - at least our bees weren't starving - but would they be able to get to the honey frame when it was in the top chamber? After fighting to get the job done, we were glad to button the hive back up. It seemed like we killed a few bees in the whole process but we'd done it, and hopefully the bees would be happy with their new extension. When we stood back from the hive, we were surprised to see the whole of the hive entrance covered in a large mass of bees. It seemed that when we smoked the bees at the top of the hive to get them to moved down and out of the way, there was no room for them and bees down at the bottom had been pushed out!

Hive Inspection Movie (Rated PG-13 for Language)

The top bar hive is still in the construction phase.... photos will be coming soon. But for now, I hope you will settle for a repeat of the Hive Inspection Movie that was posted back in August of last year..... but this time in high-definition!




BTW, you'll need to switch to HD and full screen to really get a good look at the bees. HD of 720p works just fine if, like me, the 1080p option doesn't work so well.