Exploring the World of Bees…
The two poisoned hives were inspected again. The larger commercial strain hive was opened and the queen was found.
The smaller wild colony of the WildCA18A genetics still continues to loose bees in the front of the hive. This colony was moved to Niagara St. for closer observation and a full inspection. No front entrance activity was seen and a quick opening of the top revealed more still sick bees but at least a few frames of nurse and worker bees.
The two campus hives which were discovered to have been exposed to pesticide poisoning were opened. The commercial hive appears to have normal activity inside. The numbers of bees looks very good and this hive should recover, if the poison exposure is over. The top super is full of bees and full of stored honey. A through search for the queen revealed nothing. I did see newly laid eggs. I will perform a follow up 3 days later to look for the queen again and or simply the presence of eggs.
The adjacent colony which was a wild caught swarm from the Wild17 genetics and subsequently re-queened with the Wild CA18 genetics does not look good at all. A quick inspection of the top box showed numerous bees which were in the final stages of poison exposure. These bees displayed uncontrollable twitching and spastic movements. This hive will most likely not survive the poison exposure. I did not remove any more than just one frame from the top box. I will leave this colony alone for now.
All Campus hives which could be treated were treated with the standard 10 minute oxalic acid vapor treatment. This includes Woody’s Pond hive and Officer Ed’s hive.
The campus hives were visually inspected. It appears that 2 of the hives, one wild and one commercial have been poisoned. These colonies must have been exposed to some sort of pesticides out in the wild while foraging. This is the time of year when the Japanese beetles hit hard and home owners spray. These colonies may not survive. The die off is very significant.
Officer Ed’s hive is doing extremely well and has almost filled out the lower brood box. I opened up another chamber for brood production. This hive does not have a queen excluder and is comprised of only honey supers. We will continue to use just honey supers for brood chambers with this hive body.
The S family foster bee colony is doing extremely well. The 10 frame box is just about fully filled out. I moved 2 frames, 1 resource and 1 brood into the 3 frame starter colony box. I gave this split a raised queen. The bees in this colony were aggressive. The sprinkler system was hitting the colony entrance. This was fixed.
Some rearranging of existing starter colonies and colony splits was performed. The Queen starter colonies were moved around and reconfigured. From Left to Right…The largest of the queen starter colonies was moved into a 3 frame deep box. The queen was caged and the bees moved. 1 resource frame and 1 brood frame was used to start the colony. Another colony was started with a split. The split was started with 1 resource frame and 1 brood frame from the S family foster bee hive. The colony was started in the 3 frame deep box. This colony was given a new caged queen from one of the other queen starter colonies. This queen starter colony was left queenless and should begin a new queen again.
The queen colony that was moved into the Left most 3 frame deep could not take the smaller Warre frames with the transition. Those Warre frames were combined into this larger queen starter colony by moving the interior partitions. This box now contains just one colony. The queen residing in this box is my most aggressive queen from the Wild17 genetics.
This colony is severely overcrowded and needed a new box. A new box was quickly created. Also 2 frames were removed to start the 3 frame deep boxes.
All remaining frames that could not be transferred into the larger Warre Queen starter box were left out and feed back to the bees. Note: even if there are no other options, DO NOT use the top bar frames.
All hives were visually inspection upon my return the Denver from vacation. All hives appear to be in excellent condition. Several hives are showing bearding activity in the hot summer days. Even into the night some hives are simply overcrowded and do not have enough room. The colony populations will begin to decline in the next 6 weeks. I do not plan to increase the size of the hives at this point.
Quick Visual inspection on the campus hives was performed. All hives appear normal. No Swarm catcher activity.