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Hive Inspection

The Hive at Woody’s pond was opened and inspected. The hive numbers were very low and are a concern. The queen was found easily. There are eggs, larva and capped brood present. Also a large number of dead bees in the bottom of the hive. The last inspection I cleaned the bottom of the hive out, so these are all new deaths in the last 6 weeks. The hive may be getting too much wind. Sun is not a problem. I moved the entrance excluder to the other side as to maybe prevent wind from blowing directly on the brood.

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Hive Splits

Officer Ed’s hive was inspected. This hive immediately showed a huge number of bees at the exterior. Upon inspection the both shallow brood boxes are packed full of bees. I took 3 frames of eggs, larva and brood away from the mother colony and put them into a 3 frame NUC (027). NOTE: the mother colony has shallow frames which have been put into a deep NUC. Move these bees to full as soon as there is a hatched queen.

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Hive Splits – New Queen

Queen-less Split (001) started on March 14, mother colony (28-29) has emerged. We will check back in 2 week for eggs.  This split made 2 adjoining queen cells which could not be separated. The unhatched queen appears to be intact and not killed yet. So this frame was cleared of all bees and moved into another split from the (28-29) mother colony. One frame of brood with nurse bees was taken from mother colony (28-29) and put into a 3 frame NUC box (026).

One frame of nurse bees from mother colony(28-29) was moved into the 3 Frame NUC box (026). The Single frame with the unhatched queen cell was added. Hopefully the unopened and undamaged queen cell still contains a viable queen. Otherwise we will combine this colony back with the mother colony or turn into a new split.

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Hive Splits – New Queen

Queen-less Split (030) started on March 7, mother colony (28-29) has finally emerged. We will check back in 2 week for eggs. Mating flights may be delayed by a 2 day low temperature weather pattern that is starting 4 days from now. This queen was delayed by approximately 8 days from the normal expected queen rearing calendar. The delay was mostly observed in the time to begin the queen cell. Also may have been a 1-2 day delay in the queen gestational cycle while in the capped queen cell stage. We will see how the other 2 splits emerge which were created with a one week separation each.

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Making Queens

Making a new colony is a very fun activity in the Spring. If left alone to their own actions, Honey Bee colonies will perform this action every spring in an attempt to make a genetic copy of their successful genes. When the bees do this on their own we call this behavior a “Swarm”. When beekeepers trigger this behavior manually, we call this a “Split”.

As a beekeeper we would rather perform a split manually and satisfy the honey bee’s instinctive desire to swarm. During a swarm, the beekeeper will loose over half of the colony to the swarm and may never see those bees again. In a swarm the original queen takes over half the hive out to find a new home somewhere far away. A beekeeper can prevent this behavior by performing splits.

A split is simply the act of opening up a hive and taking out 2-3 frames of brood and leaving behind the queen with the mother colony. Taking out frames of bee brood will slow the mother colony down and make them less likely to swarm.

The new split has tons of workers and brood at different stages of development. The worker bees will choose a larva at the correct stage of development and begin turning that larva into a queen. Thereby, in about 25 days, this new colony will have a mated queen ready to start laying eggs. The video below is following the worker bees create a queen cell and raise a new queen.

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Clean Bees

Bees have evolved all different manners of behaviors which promote survival. One of those mechanisms is to keep the interior of the hive clean and Hygienic. We see hygiene being practiced by the overall colony and also on an individual level of the worker bee.

The colony as a whole will show clean behavior by never excreting any waste inside the hive. On nicer warm days usually in the afternoon, you will see bees coming out and performing cleansing flights. Basically, they will not go to the bathroom inside the hive. They will fly out and circle in front of the hive before they deposit their waste.

We see other cleanliness behavior in the role of the housekeeping bee. Bees move through different jobs inside the hive during their lifespan. One of those jobs is one of cleaning the inside of the hive. This involves cleaning debris and also carrying out the dead bees. Instinctively bees will fly out a distance from the hive in one last act before they die. However, if they die inside the hive, the cleaning bees will carry them out and deposit them in front of the hive.

Cleaning the hive and cleansing flights are all behavior which take energy and pose significant risk to the individual bee. But the long term survival of the colony is increased with this behavior.

Be careful, you might get pooped on. Do not worry, it is only pollen and nectar.

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Guard Bees

Worker bees take on different roles throughout their relatively short lives. One of those jobs they graduate to is the job of a guard bee. Guard bees primary role is to protect the entrance of the hive and prevent unauthorized intruders from entering the hive. Usually the biggest risk to the hive are forager bees from a different colony. The bees have a huge amount of resources to protect inside the hive. And those resources will directly affect the colonies survival. If all the honey stores are raided then a colony will soon perish.

Watch this guard bee check bees coming into the hive and chase other intruders away.

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Spring Bees

Best time of year for a beekeeper is Spring. The bees have survived the worst that Winter had to offer and are beginning to thrive. The bees are focused on foraging and building up the brood. The bees will not even notice us hanging out at the entrance and may not even notice a quick inspection.

When Spring returns, get back in those hives and do an inspection. It may have been at least a month since you last gave them a good look. Do not be afraid to get reacquainted with your bees.

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Hive Inspections – Major

All 5 Niagara Hives were inspected.

Hive, (001-002) was opened and inspected. Hive had good pollen and honey stores. The top box appeared to be mostly empty with only a dozen or so bees. The lower box was not very full of bees either. The queen was found and hundreds of eggs were seen in cells. However, none of the eggs were hatched nor was there any capped brood. I am concerned about this hive’s late start or possible problem. No smoke or veil was used.

Hive, (004-005) was opened and inspected. Hive had good pollen and honey stores. The number of bees was significantly higher than other hives. The queen was laying a large number of eggs and there were many locations of capped brood. A huge increase in this hive will be seen soon.

Hive, (019) was opened and inspected. Hive had good pollen and honey stores. This hive had extremely small numbers just 3 weeks ago and has seemed to bounce back a little bit. I will continue to shelter this hive during cold weather. Good looking amounts of brood, larva and eggs. The queen activity looks good.

Hive, (016-017) was opened and inspected. Hive had good pollen and honey stores. Number of bees was average compared to other hives but still far greater than (001-002) . This Warre hive had 3 frames of brood and the numbers look stable and healthy. The Queen activity looks excellent. No smoke or veil was used.

Split (003) was opened and inspected. No signs of queen cells are seen. No smoke or veil was used with thishive.

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Hive Inspection

A quick look into the Corona property hives. Colony (025) shows approximately the same number of bees as earlier in the month. No significant growth is seen with this queen and the month of March.

Colony (28-29) still continues to grow at an astonishing rate. The colony is taking up sugar water and back filling some of the brood chamber a bit. The colony was extremely strong and 2 frames were removed for a third split for this month. These splits are likely too early in the season to produce viable colonies. however, we will either combine these bees back to the mother colony or use these splits as breeding colonies in April.