Category: Bee Keeping Journal

All campus hives which were moved to Niagara Street were moved back to the Campus. The move went well and there are no issues with the bees. The 3 hives are extremely strong and extremely active.

Once the hives were moved, a split was performed. The queen stayed with the mother hive (020) and 3 frames of eggs and brood with nurse bees were moved to a new “Hoover” box.

It is that time of year. Bees are active but very little to no forage is available. Pollen is coming in but flowers are not yet around.

This hive was successfully over-wintered at Niagara street. While the hive is small in numbers, the hive appears to be healthy. A quick inspection shows brood but a very small number of bees. The queen was not seen but signs of eggs are present. I am concerned that the queen was not seen as there are so few bees.

All hives are outside and look good.

Hive 022 was opened, and the top box was examined for eggs. Eggs were found and the queen was captured and moved to the bottom box, below the Queen excluder. We will slowly get the brood out of the top box. The queen was very skinny and kept escaping the queen clip. Not sure if she will stay below the queen excluder.

Hive 021 was opened. Brood was found in the top deep box. The hive is extremely active and populated with bees. The sugar which was added in Feb is completely gone. I added more sugar to the top.

Hive 020 was opened. Small amounts of resources were still in some exterior frames. More sugar was added to the top. A surprising amount of dead bees are accumulating at the bottom of this hive. Not sure if this is normal behavior for this time of year. The other hives do not show this symptom.

Hive 007 was opened. The bees were a bit angry and low on numbers. There are still complete frames of honey resources in the top box. I did not examine the hive any further. This is by far the weakest colony we have.

After a full week of amazing warm weather, we are heading back towards snow and temperatures in the 10-20F. Upon quick inspections, these colonies are probably strong enough to weather this cold snap. However, I want to move these hives back to the campus and keeping them in the garage for a few days sequestered will be fine. We may take the bees back to campus mid week or wait until Saturday 03-12.

I have noticed that the activity of spring bees before any forage is available, is very unpleasant. These bees are active but have very little to do. I would relate their behavior as worse than Fall bees. Their temperament is aggressive even at a distance from the hive.

The bees in hive 022 are bringing in pollen and we have verified that there are at least 2 weeks of brood in the comb.

Two of the campus hives were inspected and hive organization was corrected. No queen was seen but signs were seen in hive 022.

Hive 22 overwintered with a shallow honey super. The queen has been laying in the super for at least 2 weeks. Several new bees were seen on the frames as well as capped brood, larva and many eggs. The top honey super was inspected for a queen, and she was not found after two inspections of the top box. The queen excluder was put into place. We will verify soon that she is in the bottom box if no eggs are seen after a week.

Hive 021 was inspected. Very few bees were in the top honey super so I emptied all the bees out and placed a solid divider on top of the lower brood box keeping all bees out of the super. Hove 021 looks extremely good.

All the 5, previously indoor hives, were moved out at 7am and allowed to acclimate for 3 hours to the colder outside temperatures before removing the wire mesh. We do not want bees pouring out of the hive into 20F temperatures. Around 1pm, 40F, the hives showed activity and began their orientation and cleansing flights. All hives have good activity at the entrances. Once we get into April, the 3 campus hives will be returned to their location on the campus berm. Temperatures this week will show highs possibly around 70F. We will be doing inspections and evaluations.

A huge drop in temperature is approaching the Denver area. We can expect a drop from 60F to around -5F. The temps are not expected to rise about 20F for approximately 5 days. This type of weather can destroy even the hardiest of colonies. So, in these extreme cases, I will attempt to move the hives indoors until the next day where temps are above 40F. The bees have made it this far through winter, I would hate for them to not make it through these last few weeks.

The boxes from campus were moved in their entirety. I was planning on consolidating the hives a bit, possibly into NUCs. But the winds were so incredibly strong that I dare not open the hives. The plastic wrap is to block the cracks in the interface between hive boxes. The hive boxes need some work as there are 3/8 openings which bees can exit through.

4 Dollars’ worth of sugar can go a long way to preventing a colony collapse. In late winter sometimes we need to give the bees just a little insurance against starving. I typically will make up a sugar candy recipe. However, if you are short on time, you can just place some newspaper down and pour raw dry sugar on top. I also sprinkle a bit of pollen protein substitute.

Depending on the year, I will also take some unharvested honey frames and add them to the colony. However, this requires good weather to interact with the bees. I prefer to leave the bees alone as much as possible this time of year. Even on a nice warm day, it may be preferred to leave them alone. Breaking all the propolis joints or wax bridges is something that bees this time of year cannot readily repair. So, just adding sugar to the top 1 inch of the hive space is very easy and unobtrusive.