Thursday, March 4, 2010
It's Still Christmas in Livermore
Alan is the local beekeeper that taught Jessica and I everything that we know about Beekeeping. He has a great website and he also teaches beekeeping classes at the Green Gulch Farm and Zen Center. Alan told us that when he sees queen cells it feels like Christmas.... he has been gifted queens with which to split his hives and expand his apiary. Alan likes bees. It would seem that Jessica and I are having an extended Christmas this year with our bees...... we just keep finding more and more swarm cells. First we discovered seven in the top box, which later got revised upwards to twelve or so. We were pretty confident that we didn't have any swarm cells in the bottom box when we split the hive.......but lately we've began to realize that we really haven't got a clue what's going on (or perhaps what we are doing). It would now seem that we have new queens everywhere. You've heard the piping from the new hive, but we also have lots of piping happening in the old hive as well, so there must be multiple virgin queens there too. We checked back at the video of the last hive inspection and found a further three swarm cells partially hidden under a carpet of bees (you can just see some of them on the photos I posted - check out frames 5 and 6). That makes fifteen swarm cells in total and a bumper Christmas all round. The question now with all these queens is whether the bees will swarm despite our efforts to persuade them otherwise?
More Piping
I managed to get a clearer recording today from inside the new hive.....
So what is piping?? According to wikipedia, piping collectively describes the noises made by virgin queens (and sometimes mated queen bees). When the virgin queen is still in her swarm cell she make a sound that is called "quacking". After she emerges the sound she makes changes and it is called "tooting". Apparently a virgin queen may frequently pipe before she emerges from her cell and for a brief time afterwards, and piping is most common when there is more than one queen in a hive. It is thought that the piping is a form of battle cry announcing to competing queens and the workers their willingness to fight. It may also be a signal to the worker bees which queen is the most worthwhile to support.
So, queens make a sound that's called piping. When they pipe they are either tooting or quacking, depending on whether they are inside their swarm cells or not . I'm presuming these are the two sounds you can hear in the video. An emerged queen signals her presence by tooting and then queens still in their cells reply with a quacking sound. The reply really does sound like quacking to me. Not so sure about the tooting. I think I can definitely hear two queens quacking in the reply..... but we know there are at least a dozen swarm cells in the new hive, so who knows what's really happening in there.
So what is piping?? According to wikipedia, piping collectively describes the noises made by virgin queens (and sometimes mated queen bees). When the virgin queen is still in her swarm cell she make a sound that is called "quacking". After she emerges the sound she makes changes and it is called "tooting". Apparently a virgin queen may frequently pipe before she emerges from her cell and for a brief time afterwards, and piping is most common when there is more than one queen in a hive. It is thought that the piping is a form of battle cry announcing to competing queens and the workers their willingness to fight. It may also be a signal to the worker bees which queen is the most worthwhile to support.
So, queens make a sound that's called piping. When they pipe they are either tooting or quacking, depending on whether they are inside their swarm cells or not . I'm presuming these are the two sounds you can hear in the video. An emerged queen signals her presence by tooting and then queens still in their cells reply with a quacking sound. The reply really does sound like quacking to me. Not so sure about the tooting. I think I can definitely hear two queens quacking in the reply..... but we know there are at least a dozen swarm cells in the new hive, so who knows what's really happening in there.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Queens Piping
I was standing in the yard beside the new hive today and I could hear queen bees piping from inside! It was quite distinct and especially so when I pressed my ear to the side of the hive. It definitely sounded like there was at least two queens inside talking to each other. One would first call and that would trigger the other to start. I managed to use my camera to record the sounds they were making, using a pair of headphones as a microphone and dangling them into the hole in the inner cover. You might need to turn you speakers up to high to really hear them. The gentle rustle you can hear in the background is the hum from the worker bees and not the wind blowing through the blossom tree.
Monday, March 1, 2010
There's too Many Queens in Here; Let's Split
People often describe honey bee colonies as 'super organisms.' While they reproduce on an individual scale--a queen lays individual eggs that hatch into individual bees--they also reproduce on a large and collective scale, which is called swarming. In a swarm situation, the old queen and about half of the bees in the colony take off looking for a new home and leave behind a newly emerged queen with the other half of the workers.
Several factors contribute to when a colony swarms, including the time of year (usually spring), the amount of food and brood in the hive, the space available to expand, and the health of the queen. Beekeepers often try to preempt a swarm by putting half of the bees into a separate hive box, where they can start a new colony rather than establishing themselves in a tree or a neighbor's wall. This is called splitting the hive.
Before a swarm departs, the bees do a lot of preparation, building special cells where the incumbent queen lays eggs destined to become queens. These are called swarm cells and are located on the bottom edge of the frames. This wikipedia page explains the process beautifully, and you can see two of our swarm cells in our last blog post.
Yesterday, we did our first inspection in a couple of weeks and were shocked to find seven swarm cells! We felt a little like I imagine expectant parents feel on first learning about a pregnancy. I thought 'cool but scary!' We both kind of freaked.
Well, if you follow the expectant parent/ super organism analogy, you might say that the colony's water broke this morning! One of the new queens emerged from her cell! (More about that in a moment.) As soon as we saw the swarm cells yesterday, we knew we needed to act fast. So this morning, we took a two-pronged approach to swarm prevention: 1) we split the hive, and 2) we set up the top bar hive with a lure (bee pheromone) inside in hopes of preventing a swarm by attracting the bees to make their new home in our top bar.
We did a 'half and half' or 'even' split, removing the top box from our two-box Langstroth and placing it on a bottom board of its own. Then we took a look inside of each box to check the lay of the land. Our hope was that the old queen, or at least some eggs, would end up in the 'old' hive (bottom box) and that all of the swarm cells and no old queen would end up in the 'new' hive (top box). The idea being that the old queen could continue her reign of the old hive or, if she had died, new eggs could be made into an emergency queen. And the virgin queens in the swarm cells in the new hive could fight it out amongst themselves to be the reigning monarch of the new colony.
But boy did we get a surprise! It all went as hoped except that the old hive actually had an emerged virgin queen (see photo below), who was running around calling for any other emergent queens to come out and fight to the death like...well, like a queen bee, I suppose. She was 'tooting,' which sounds like a kazoo being sounded at short intervals. You can hear it in the video below.
The new queen:
The new queen calling to the other queens. She's in the upper-left hand corner, moving fast!
I thought I'd heard the same sound yesterday and suspected it might be one of the queens, but it was really incredible to actually locate her by following the sound and to see her running around on the frame. She isn't mated yet so she doesn't have much queen pheromone or the distinctive distended abdomen, so the other bees don't pay her much attention, let alone homage. She actually looks a lot like one of the other bees right now, but her body is a little longer and she doesn't have as distinctive stripes as the workers and drones. Instead, she's kind of a honey color, which gradually becomes dark brown toward the end of her abdomen.
We don't know what's going to happen next because we never found the old queen. I suspect that she has died. If she has, then her daughter queens will continue her lineage in two new colonies. If she is still around in either hive, there might yet be a swarm!
Another interesting thing to think about is what temperament the new colonies will exhibit. Each bee in a colony is the daughter or son of its queen, so she largely determines the characteristics of her offspring. However, there is a wild card thrown in--the drone. Each mated queen mates with several drones (10 to 45--13 on average), and his genes will be expressed in the colony as well. Helen (our first queen) gave us gentle, relatively hardy bees. We'll have to wait to see what the next generation of royalty brings.
Several factors contribute to when a colony swarms, including the time of year (usually spring), the amount of food and brood in the hive, the space available to expand, and the health of the queen. Beekeepers often try to preempt a swarm by putting half of the bees into a separate hive box, where they can start a new colony rather than establishing themselves in a tree or a neighbor's wall. This is called splitting the hive.
Before a swarm departs, the bees do a lot of preparation, building special cells where the incumbent queen lays eggs destined to become queens. These are called swarm cells and are located on the bottom edge of the frames. This wikipedia page explains the process beautifully, and you can see two of our swarm cells in our last blog post.
Yesterday, we did our first inspection in a couple of weeks and were shocked to find seven swarm cells! We felt a little like I imagine expectant parents feel on first learning about a pregnancy. I thought 'cool but scary!' We both kind of freaked.
Well, if you follow the expectant parent/ super organism analogy, you might say that the colony's water broke this morning! One of the new queens emerged from her cell! (More about that in a moment.) As soon as we saw the swarm cells yesterday, we knew we needed to act fast. So this morning, we took a two-pronged approach to swarm prevention: 1) we split the hive, and 2) we set up the top bar hive with a lure (bee pheromone) inside in hopes of preventing a swarm by attracting the bees to make their new home in our top bar.
We did a 'half and half' or 'even' split, removing the top box from our two-box Langstroth and placing it on a bottom board of its own. Then we took a look inside of each box to check the lay of the land. Our hope was that the old queen, or at least some eggs, would end up in the 'old' hive (bottom box) and that all of the swarm cells and no old queen would end up in the 'new' hive (top box). The idea being that the old queen could continue her reign of the old hive or, if she had died, new eggs could be made into an emergency queen. And the virgin queens in the swarm cells in the new hive could fight it out amongst themselves to be the reigning monarch of the new colony.
But boy did we get a surprise! It all went as hoped except that the old hive actually had an emerged virgin queen (see photo below), who was running around calling for any other emergent queens to come out and fight to the death like...well, like a queen bee, I suppose. She was 'tooting,' which sounds like a kazoo being sounded at short intervals. You can hear it in the video below.
The new queen:
The new queen calling to the other queens. She's in the upper-left hand corner, moving fast!
I thought I'd heard the same sound yesterday and suspected it might be one of the queens, but it was really incredible to actually locate her by following the sound and to see her running around on the frame. She isn't mated yet so she doesn't have much queen pheromone or the distinctive distended abdomen, so the other bees don't pay her much attention, let alone homage. She actually looks a lot like one of the other bees right now, but her body is a little longer and she doesn't have as distinctive stripes as the workers and drones. Instead, she's kind of a honey color, which gradually becomes dark brown toward the end of her abdomen.
We don't know what's going to happen next because we never found the old queen. I suspect that she has died. If she has, then her daughter queens will continue her lineage in two new colonies. If she is still around in either hive, there might yet be a swarm!
Another interesting thing to think about is what temperament the new colonies will exhibit. Each bee in a colony is the daughter or son of its queen, so she largely determines the characteristics of her offspring. However, there is a wild card thrown in--the drone. Each mated queen mates with several drones (10 to 45--13 on average), and his genes will be expressed in the colony as well. Helen (our first queen) gave us gentle, relatively hardy bees. We'll have to wait to see what the next generation of royalty brings.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
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:
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.
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
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
Friday, February 26, 2010
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.
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
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
Thursday, February 18, 2010
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.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
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:
Monday, February 8, 2010
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:.jpg)
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:
.jpg)
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
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!
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!
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
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.
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.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
A New Bee Adventure
Yesterday we began building a top bar hive. We are following instructions and plans by P J Chandler, which are posted at www.biobees.com. Photos and information to follow soon!
P.S. The Langstroth hive started in August is doing very well. We opened the hive last weekend because it was such a warm, lovely day, and they had completely filled the last two frames with capped honey! Go bees, go!
P.S. The Langstroth hive started in August is doing very well. We opened the hive last weekend because it was such a warm, lovely day, and they had completely filled the last two frames with capped honey! Go bees, go!
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