Maybe get back into bees next year after things settle down with the new grandchild.

Both hives are alive of 3/3/5.  Snow incoming.

Oscar ha muerto

Looks like the Oscar hive did not make it through the winter.  I ordered a package of Buckfast to get it started again.  The Felix bees are out and about and bringing in pollen.  I put out a chick waterer with sugar water and wintergreen oil in case they need it.

Yard Work

Hurricane Irene took down half of the big hickory tree in the front yard.  Some of said tree landed on Oscar.  It turns out Oscar was knocked slightly of the stand.  Jack and I straightened the hive up yesterday before the temperature got above 50F and the bees started moving.  We also managed to cut the rest of the branches away from the hive and got them moved away.

Usually procrastination is a bad thing.  This time waiting to clean up the tree from the front yard paid off. The wood was drier and lighter and split better.  The weather was cooler and therefore the bees were not an issue.  All and all, about a cord of hickory with a bit of oak mixed in.

After Irene

After Snowtober

Cut And Split

Stacked on the Porch

Leaves Blown, Sticks Raked, and Grass Cut

Oscar no es feliz

Stupid hurricane.

Hot.

118F heat index and everyone is melting.  Felix still has an entrance reducer with the largest opening and is bearding.  Oscar has no reducer and is not bearding.  I am not about to suit up in this heat and open up Felix.  They will be fine hanging out outside the hive.

Felix was faking, long live Felix

It turns out the bees going in and out of Felix were robbers from Oscar.  I reconfigured the hive to the same setup as Oscar and ordered new bees.  The replacements and their queen arrived this morning.  Of course it is raining buckets and in the mid 50s.  The sun eventually peeked out this afternoon and I hived the new arrivals.  No issues, no problem.  The bees seemed pleased that their new home was mostly furnished and partially stocked with honey.

Felix Lives

Felix was just playing possum, apparently.  Sunshine and 50F and there are signs of life.

March Bees

It is 45F and sunny and the Oscar hive has bees out and about.  There is pollen substitute and fondant on this hive so they have something to eat until the pollen starts coming in.

If Felix doesn't show some signs of life soon, I am going to order another 3lb package of Buckfast bees for that hive.  Nairobi will have to wait until Oscar swarms for new bees.

Mid-winter Sighting

Last weekend the temperature rose above freezing for the first time since New Year's Day.  The sun was out and when the air hit around 40F Oscar's bees took flight.  I whipped up a quick batch of fondant to feed them.  I checked Felix while I was out knee deep in the snow but that hive looks pretty dead as does the top bar.  It looks like one out of three have made it so far.

New Years Eve Bees

The Oscar hive had bees out and about today.  The other two hives, not so much.  The temperature hit about 48F for a high.

Fall Feeding

I put the last of 10 gallons of 2:1 sugar syrup + essential oils on the hives today.  The temperature is still into the 60s so the girls are out foraging.  I closed up the entrances of the Langstroths with reducers on the large opening.  I will shut them down to the small opening once the temperature stays in the 40s or lower.

Felix looked good with comb visible in most of the bars in the upper deep.  Nairobi is still kind of small with comb on only 9 bars.  Oscar doesn't have much in the 3rd deep, but with 2 undivided deeps below it should be ok.

I need to get screen to make condensers out of shallows and wood shavings in order to keep the moisture down in the Langs over the winter.  I will probably do that this weekend if they have finished off all the syrup.  Nothing but fondant and pollen patties for everybody once this syrup is gone,

Robbing

Bald faced hornets and lots and lots of yellow jackets.  Nairobi has no honey stored and the girls are evacuating a ton of dead bees from the bottom of the hive.  I corked the second of three holes on the KTBH and put entrance reducers on the two Langstroths.  I will start feeding 2:1 sugar to water this weekend through the rest of the fall.

Many yellow jackets have felt the wrath of my hive tool.  The little bastards were even killing bees at the waterer I have set up on the porch.  I killed one nest earlier in the summer that was trying to establish in the railrod tie retaining wall.  Stupid wasps.

Nairobi Is Progressing Nicely.

Nairobi has comb on nine bars, eight of which have brood.  They are starting to put up honey on the ninth bar and have some capped honey across the tops of the comb on the other eight.  The brood bars are 1/2 to 2/3 filled with comb with lots of capped brood and larvae completely fill the comb.  I hope that since bar 9 is only honey that it means the recently matured workers are now putting up stores for the winter.  These bees were very calm today and did not raise a fuss even though I pulled most of the bars looking for the queen.

Lots of brood

Capped honey on the last bar

Felix has started to fill the top deep and so has Oscar.  Neither hive has started on the supers and may not get to them this year.  If they fill the reserves on the remaining summer and fall blossoms, that would be great.  I did not go into these hive past pulling a bar from each reserve.  They are healthy, busy, and happy, although not quite as docile as Nairobi.

Nairobi Has Brood

I looked in on the new MN Hygienic queen that is in Nairobi to see how she is doing.  I found lots of capped brood and open cells with larvae.  Also some drone cells, capped and open, at the far end of the hive.  There are 6 bars with brood and one with new comb.  Once the brood starts hatching in a few weeks I hope they get to work putting up stores for this winter.  There is some honey across the tops of the bars, but not nearly enough to last.  I plan on feeding 2:1 syrup with essential oils and pollen patties starting after the golden rod and other fall bloomers come in.

The other two hives, Oscar and Felix are busy as usual.  No action in the supers and I did not pull frames on either.

Bearding (It's Hot and Humid)

The bees in Oscar and Felix are good during the day when everybody is out gathering, but there is not quite enough room for everyone in the hive when the sun goes down.  Nairobi is still waiting for new workers from the MN Hygienic queen I put in a couple of weeks ago, so it has no overcrowding/overheating problems.  The pictures below were taken at 10:30pm.  Oscar is stacked taller which might explain why there are more bees hanging out on Felix.  Both hives have screened bottom boards.

Felix

Oscar

Nairobi's New Queen

The new Minnesota Hygienic queen came in the mail on Friday.  I removed the old queen from the hive and popped her in the freezer.  On Saturday I put the new queen into the hive with the cork out of the candy end of the queen cage.  I will check back in a couple of days to make sure she has been released.

Father's Day Check In

The kids and I looked in on all three hives today.  The weather was sunny on a weekend for the first time in a while.  Both Langstroth hives have been very busy this month when the weather has permitted.  The KTBH has been much more quiet, though.


Felix - busy, happy hive.  They are still working on filling the bottom hive body and not much work upstairs in the second hive.  I pulled the feeder box off.  It was empty and they don't need it now with everything in bloom.

Oscar - same as Felix.  Looks like they have good comb on 8 out of 10 bars in the brood chamber.  Nothing happening in the honey reserve box yet.  This is probably the last time I will look into the brood chamber on this hive. 

I have supers prepped for both Oscar and Felix, but neither needed supering today.  The wild clover started blooming about a week ago, so the nectar flow should start any day.  The crimson clover I planted is starting to bloom and the yellow clover should be a week or two behind that.  I will check in on the Langs in a couple of weeks to see if they need supers.

That leaves the Nairobi hive.  The Buckfast queen that shipped with this hive's package of bees underwent some stress as noted in an earlier post.  She is not laying well.  There is no capped or open brood and a lot of drones.  This could mean the workers are laying or that she is just not up to the task.  In either case, I ordered another queen to replace her and it should arrive this week.  I hope the remaining bees are not too old to support the new queen and that the workers are not laying and will accept her.

Queen spotted

Honey on top, but no brood.  Same bar as above

Memorial Day Weekend Inspections

My son Jack and I peeked into the Langstroths on Sunday to check on the comb building and to add a second deep to Felix.

Felix is building out comb nicely on the foundationless frames.  The nuc I installed was full foundation and even one plastic frame, but they are taking to foundationless just fine. To give them a clue that they should start building in the new deep, I moved a frame that had only comb with some stores on it into the new one.

Oscar is coming along nicely.  The brood chamber has comb that extends below where the bottom bars would normally be on standard frames.  There are empty cells where there were previously capped brood which means new bees have hatched out.  The queen was spotted and all signs point to continued laying as I saw capped and uncapped brood.  They are also starting to store honey across the tops of the combs.  The honey reserve box with empty frames showed no sign of being built on, so I swapped a frame from the brood chamber with comb on it up into the reserve box.  I removed the bottom bar from reserve #7 frame and stuck it on brood #7 frame.  Hopefully the bees will take the hint and start building on the reserve frames.

Next inspection is slated for June 12th, weather permitting.  I want to give the bees a couple of weeks to work undisturbed.

The Felix bees had no problem switching to foundationless

Another foundationless frame from Felix

Felix with the second deep installed

Oscar brood frame with a drone cell visible (yellow bump in the middle)

A Couple of Quick Inspections

Nairobi is continuing to build comb.  I added a couple of more bars and removed the cork from the third entrance hole.  I pulled bars from the entrance backward until I found the queen.  Combs have capped and uncapped brood, pollen, capped and capped honey.  Nairobi looks set so I am going to leave it alone for a couple of weeks to give the girls time to build out.

Oscar has comb on all the frames except #9 and #10.  I did not pull any more as I am waiting until this weekend to do a more thorough inspection.  Since the brood chamber had 80% of the frames being built upon, I went ahead and added the hive body that will be the honey reserve.  I also removed the queen excluder since there should be drones hatching soon and they need to get out.

Oscar with the honey reserve deep installed

Felix got the least attention today because those bees have only been there since Sunday.  I checked the level of syrup in the feeder and removed the entrance reducer to help with the traffic jams.  I will add the second deep this weekend and let them get started on their winter reserves.

Felix with a little more access for the bees

It is rather green this year