BeeGnus

Just finished extracting my first honey this year. Actually only 4 full frames from the view hive … I really should have left it on longer. The bees themselves seem to be doing great, but they’re not great producers … interesting. I’m wondering if bee breeders working on genetics for survival aren’t getting the honey production they once did. After all, their big money is in pollination these days, so maybe they want lots of bees and don’t care as much about honey.

One year I had both Italians and Carnolians, and they were genetically pretty pure, too, and the Carnolians were MUCH slower builders than the Italians. I had bought the packages from Honeybee Genetics in Vacaville, and the breeder agreed that it was a trait of theirs. SO, I know they’ve been breeding that strain in ever since for mite resistance, so maybe my bees are slow builders by nature?

I’m going to check my upstairs hive in the ayem to see how their super is doing. I may mix some of these partially built frames in with them, or just pull their super altogether and put this one on them. We’re almost to the dearth, so I know I’m not going to get much more honey anyway. This will mostly be with the hope that they’ll finish up this box for me!

The View hive is the winner for honey production … Charlie and I will put on the wet medium super that I just spun from last year’s lower yard hive last week. Great honey, but a teensy bit crystalized in the comb. The super on the hive is totally built! Yay! Other hives still are partials, and I’m going to leave them on until the dearth hits … may even combine them onto the strongest hive. You go girls!

A check of the super on the View hive at Patti’s showed that their super had about 5 frames going with honey. No emergency to get another super on … but I need to check the two at my house to see who’s winning the honey super race asap. I’m going to spin a medium super from last year this weekend and will give the built comb super (wet with honey!) to the winner.

I now have supers on all 4 hives. Here is part one of my report:

The garden hive that lost their queen got a built super on Tues, but that is the only box on it besides the single deep brood box. I didn’t put on a queen excluder, so I don’t intend to get any honey out of it. I just wanted to give them more room. When I checked on the new queen from Oliverez on day 11, the queen cage was empty (I removed it) and there was capped brood in the nest. I have to assume the new queen accomplished this, since I put her in on June 11th and the was no capped brood in there at that time. Also, when I liberated her on day 3 — removing cork from cage and the honey plug was already partially eaten through — the workers were storing pollen all around her cage, so I’m pretty sure they accepted her. See chart below for capping time — there should be some capped brood there (If found 2 partial frames) if she started laying right away.

I put built-out supers on all but the garden hive 2 weeks ago and can’t wait to check them in a day or two when I have time. The activity level went WAY up when I added the boxes — they all had some honey in the comb and the bees really reacted. All look good except the garden hive, darn it.

The garden hive, unfortunately, had done next to nothing in their second deep, so I took it off and searched for a queen. No queen, no eggs, a few larvae, no capped brood and a lot of milling about. So the larvae could be laying worker cells. There were lots of bees in that one deep and no evidence of what happened to the queen. If she was in there, she had stop laying, I’m sure.

And a new queen

I ordered an Italian queen from Oliveras that arrived on Thursday, June 10. Ann and I put her in on Friday after carefully removing 3 of the 5 attendants she had in her cage in my bathroom (!) as per the instructions of the “bee guy,” Ray Oliveras senior. He actually said to take them all out, but I didn’t have the heart. He said to leave the cork in the candy plug for 2 days, then remove it, which I did. By then the candy plug was already partially eaten, so I’ll bet she was out the next day. Hope she made it! I’m not supposed to look for 10 days, but I may get in tomorrow and pull out the cage to avoid wonky comb.

Due to all the wierd, cool, rainy weather we’ve had this Spring, my bees have hardly stored any food. Every time flowers got going, it would rain hard and knock them all off! Even stored honey from last year on my combined hive below was eaten up last time we looked. I’m VERY concerned that they have food, since Randy O has determined that nutrition is so important. So I’ve added pollen patties today — BeePro from Mann Lake — to all of them, between the two deeps.

At this point, the boomer hive is the View hive at Patti’s … The deep I just added 2 weeks ago was FULL of bees and building comb in several frames. Next was my upper hive, that also had a lot of bees but less comb (2 frames) built. Patti’s garden hive looked healthy but hadn’t built much in the second deep. The combined hive, although very active, had not built at all. I can’t wait to check on them in a couple weeks to see what has happened.

Head of a honeybee in an electron microscope.

Although it’s still chilly out and MORE rain is predicted later this week, the bees are working hard to find what they can to eat. I’m feeding sugar water periodically to supplement them and so far they seem fine. 100 bees per minute at least leaving the hive.

Yesterday we added a deep on the survivor hive in the lower yard. They were a bit behind the nucs due to their slow start. They had built out all 10 frames, and were in 7.5 of them, so it was time. I didn’t get into them and look for the queen because it was windy and a bit cool for the brood … will do that in a week or so.

More extreme closeups of honeybees at:
http://discovermagazine.com/photos/18-alluring-alien-sights-of-bee-ultra-close-up

All three of the nucs we bought from Randy Oliver are booming! It’s SO wonderful to see healthy bees in action again.

Installation of Oliver nuc at my house

I’m still feeding them with sugar water since we’ve had this oddball, long, wet spring where the blossoms were getting knocked off by rainstorms periodically. I’m assuming that there is some merit to the theory that part of our collapse problem is poor nutrition, and I intend to feed them a lot more than I have in the past. I will do pollen patties when the nectar flow stops, for sure. I’ll be needing to do more research on where to buy the best quality pollen.

I put the second deep on all of them last week, and will monitor their building progress on mostly new foundation. I’ve used a combination of several brands, including old-school Dadant’s Duragilt and wired wax, Mann Lake’s deep cell plastic (only on the outsides to deal with heat melt), and the new stuff Randy recommended, Permadent (plastic coated with lots more sweet-smelling wax than Mann lake mail ordered from St. Louis) from Kelley. I will be watch to see which they choose to build on first!

Randy Oliver's beeyard in the Sierra foothills

Charlie and I drove to Randy Oliver’s bee yard near Colfax Last Sunday (April 18) and picked up 4 nucs — 3 for us and one for Ann to put in San Anselmo. We prepared 4 deep brood boxes with 5 frames of some built foundation and new, plus ratcheting web straps to hold the bottom and lids together, and set off in the Subaru. It took about 2 hours to find his place — a wonderful spot in the Sierra woods with bees and bee equipment pretty much everywhere. I’m finding that that the typical pro beekeeper has a very messy, very sticky world and doesn’t even notice that there are a zillion buzzing insects in the air!

Randy was fabulous. He had the nucs made up in his own boxes and let me help him move the frames with TONS of bees and brood into my boxes. We found the queen in every one … big, fat, healthy-looking girls … and moved them into my car with Charlie’s help. Watching Randy work bees was a real treat. Wearing a t-shirt and shorts — and no gloves! — he would go through each frame to make sure I was getting a good one, and when he dumped extra bees on top he would just spread them out with his bare hand!! It was amazing.

The drive home was also interesting. About 20 or 30 bees escaped the boxes and were flying around in the car with us, but no real problem … they mostly stayed in the back or got sucked out a window. Sorry girls! Installation at home was pretty uneventful, too. We slipped in Ann’s back gate and dropped hers off, then went down to Patti’s and put 2 there. Then ours up top. I left their entrance blocked for the night and let them out the next morning. So far, so good!

I snagged this cool bee art from an announcement by the Savory Thymes environmental organization re “A Celebration of the Bees” event in Mill Valley May 8. Speakers, demonstrations, food and music. Sounds great! The proceeds go to the Survivor Stock Queen Bee Project, an offshoot of the Marin Beekeeping Club that is trying a genetic approach to raising honeybees that are resistant to varroa mites and other diseases. To see the program click here.