Hive Inspection: Differences

Posted on July 26, 2016 by onedogrunning

Cracked open my three hives today, and I’m beginning to see some real differences between them.

Hive 1 (far left), which was started from a nuc in May, has two deep brood boxes and a honey super. I’m switching to foundationless frames and all the uppermost supers have them, so while they still haven’t touched their honey super, they have absolutely filled their top deep with capped honey. I could barely lift out the frames!

This hive is always super active with lots of new bees doing their orientation flights each day, so I didn’t look into the bottom box. I probably will check it in a week or so just to make sure they’re not honey-bound. I fed this hive for quite awhile so I won’t be harvesting honey from them this year, but there’s still time to make more bees. I’ve also noticed that this hive really likes to propolize! It’s like a sticky orange wonderland in there.

Hive 2 (middle) seems to be doing the best of all the hives. It was the half of the split I did in May that had the queen in it, so they’ve been going strong since the beginning. They haven’t touched their topmost super either, but they have already filled the one below it. When I looked at it I saw lots of capped honey but also a small amount of open and capped brood.

I don’t mind a bit of brood in the honey super as I won’t be harvesting from this hive either this year, since they were also fed for a short time. Eventually I plan to move to all medium boxes so anything they want to do is fine, it can always be moved. Despite all the brood, strangely this hive is the one where there is not a whole lot of entrance activity on most days.

Hive 3 (far right) is the half of the split that made their own queen. They’re still doing just fine and have two supers full of honey now, although the top box is still undrawn as with the other hives. I did notice this hive is slightly more defensive. There were more bees flying and I actually received a sting on the back when I mowed in front of it yesterday. Just a subtle difference really but interesting to note. I wonder if the queen found some feral bees to mate with which might explain it?

Today I came prepared with a bottle full of sugar syrup to spray on the frames of all the untouched top supers. Hopefully once they start to clean it up they’ll be inspired to start drawing out comb. They’re all certainly running out of room and the pollen and nectar keep flowing in.

One of my reasons for switching to foundationless frames is that I want to breed smaller bees. Bees will grow to the size of the cell they develop in. Natural cell size is about 4.6mm to 4.9mm, while over the years we’ve moved them up to a standardized 5.4mm. That’s the size of most of the foundation you’ll find commercially available. We did this because bigger bees have longer tongues that can access deeper flowers, and they can collect more nectar and pollen. However, varroa mites like bigger bees too because they take longer to gestate, which is how the mites reproduce.

If you let the bees draw their own comb, eventually after a few generations they will revert back to natural cell size. This will give them an added advantage over varroa. Since treatment free beekeeping is my objective, this will help us get there.

Festooning Bees

Posted on July 17, 2016 by onedogrunning

I did another hive inspection a few days ago, still no work on any of the upper supers by any of the hives. I did notice some festooning though, which is a good sign. Festooning is when bees hang from each other in the shape of the future comb they’re planning to build, like little plumb bobs. It’s quite an elegant thing to behold.

Of course there’s still lots of honey, nectar and bee bread to be found. I hope they’re not honey bound. Still haven’t seen a single varroa mite.

Hive Inspection: Our First Honey!

Posted on July 4, 2016 by onedogrunning

Decided to open the hives up today and see if anybody needed a new honey super. It’s hard to believe I’ve only had my bees for two months, it sort of feels like I’ve always had them. They are so fascinating to observe and learn about.

First up was the hive I started from a nuc in May. They got a new honey super last week with mixed plastic foundation and wax starter strips. I was hopeful they had done something in there during that time, anything, but they haven’t touched it.

I didn’t want to disturb them too much but I did notice lots of capped honey on the tops of the brood frames below, so they’re not doing absolutely nothing. The outer frames of their top deep brood box are still only half drawn as well, but coming along. I decided to start feeding them 50/50 sugar syrup again just so they can get a boost on beginning to draw out that comb.

Finally drawing out the outer brood frames

Just getting started on this medium frame

I’ve read that the pH of sugar water is around 6.0, while the pH of nectar is closer to 4.2. This imbalance can cause health problems for the bees so it’s best to keep feeding to an absolute minimum. I’ll probably feed this hive until they get their honey super comb well underway and then stop for good unless the bees are starving. Once I have some reserves of drawn comb to fall back on, I’ll be in a much better position.

The two split hives on the other hand were doing great. Both honey supers that were added back in May are almost completely full of honey! I’m realizing now the wisdom of those who told me that switching to all medium boxes is the way of the future. Even a single medium frame full of honey is surprisingly heavy!

Some uncapped nectar

Look at all that capped honey!

Om nom nom

I might harvest a frame or two of honey this year, but for the most part I’m expecting to leave it for the bees since this is our first year.

I’ve been learning about the natural beekeeping method spoken about by Michael Bush, which is based on not treating bees and instead allowing weak bee genetics to die out and strong/hygienic genetics to take over. He makes a good point when he says that treating varroa mites only selects for stronger varroa and weaker bees. The theory is that if everyone stops treating for varroa, the bees will adapt within a few years and it will never be a serious problem again. Of course a lot of bees will die initially, but those are all bees with weak genetics anyway.

When the tracheal mite became the latest new threat to beekeeping back in the 80s, many beekeepers began treating for them. As soon as varroa came onto the scene, they stopped treating for tracheal so they could treat for varroa, and the losses from tracheal mites resolved itself quite well in just a few years. Now nobody really treats for tracheal mites.

The ecology of a beehive contains many microorganisms other than just bees, including a documented 170 types of mites. Damaging that ecology with pesticides and antimicrobial essential oils doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I’ve made the decision to attempt to go treatment free with my hives and see what happens. I’ve already secured a few potential sites in friend’s yards so if I need to boost my hive numbers to ensure survival, that’s just what we’ll do.