Hive Inspection Pictures

[dzeller]

I inspected my hives this week and have some pictures if anyone is interested.

My wife is a photographer, so I set her old camera on a tripod and photographed both sides of every frame in the hives. (two double deeps) That was very useful, because I was able to go back and look at the pictures later more carefully. It has its limitations, of course, but it was helpful to be able to go back and look at my own leisure. I downsized the photos on the site. The originals are much higher resolution. I was able to spot eggs using the originals. If you have a good camera and tripod, I recommend the practice.

She, of course, takes pictures everytime I open up the hives. I go out all suited up. She comes out with just a shoulder veil on and starts snapping pictures. If the bees are not too riled up, she won't even bother with the veil. Every now and then she gets a visitor in her hair and runs out of the bee yard to dance around and shake it loose. Very entertaining.

Here they are:
Hive Inspection - Sept 28, 2009
Frame Photos - Sept 28, 2009

[robertloveshoney]

nice photos I like thye idear of photographing all frames .don't like gloves my self nice girls

[dzeller]

I am a newbee, only having been at this since May this year.

For my first two or three inspections, I never wore gloves. The old timer who started me out said he always wore them, but all the books I read said to get use to handling the hives without gloves. So I did at first.

As the hives grew in strength, the bees seemed to get more and more riled up when I got into the hives. I got stung a time or two and then decided that maybe I should wear them just to keep from getting into a situation where I wished that I had worn them.

This past Monday when I did this inspection, my gloves got stung many many times. Five or six stingers actually came through the gloves and stung me.

I was looking through some of the forums on this site and came across some references to spraying the bees with Honey-Bee-Healthy or a suger water solution with some spearmint and lemongrass. All I did on monday was smoke them occasionally during the course of the inspection. I did not spray them with anything. They came out in a cloud; it was pretty exciting (I actually sort of enjoyed the buzz). You can see them in several of the pictures that my wife took. She was pretty close when taking the photos, but she did not get stung - or even "swarmed" like I did.

My weaker hive seemed to be more aggressive than my stronger hive. I wondered if that were because my stronger hive was more content with their queen.

Any insight? Or is my experience pretty routine?

- Dan

[bk21701]

I noticed a lot of queen cells. Are they capped?

[Flyman]

Dzeller, I think you experiencing "fall bee syndrom". Bees that have been fairly gentle all year can be pretty cranky this time of year. They know time is drawing short and they have lots of work to do. I would never condemn a hive as "hot" based on their fall reactions to being worked. Just suit up and keep a good smoker handy. A few stings keep the immunity up.

[dzeller]

There were several queen cells on one particular frame. (There are photos of both sides.) But I don't remember seeing queen cells on other frames.

Queen Cells

This frame was in the center of the upper hive box of my weaker hive. I read somewhere that swarm cells are at the bottom of the hive while supercedure cells tend to be on the upper part of the frames. I wondered, though, if since this was the lower portion of the UPPER chamber, that these were probably supercedure cells.

In any case, two or three of these of these were open and empty. There were a few more that were still capped.

I wondered if the hive had supercedured the queen. That has been my weaker hive from the start. I did find eggs in this hive, and there was a fair amount of uncapped brood.

[bk21701]

It looks like 2 of them on picture 7. I'm not sure though as I can't zoom in on them. If you see eggs that is good. Was your original queen marked? That will tell you right there if they superseded her. I recommend that you mark your queens that way you can keep track of what queen is in your hive if they swarm or supersede. I don't mark my queens myself, I have my friend, owner of VP Queen Bees do that for me. I'm afraid I'd end up squishing a queen by marking them myself.

[dzeller]

This picture?

Queen Cell???

I assume that you are talking about the area at the top right. Yes, this might be a queen cell. I cannot recall, actually. This is the 4th frame from the end on the bottom chamber of my weaker hive - probably the side closest to the center of the hive.

There was a significant amount of comb connecting the bottom of the upper chamber to the top of the lower chamber. A lot of that comb was pulled and distorted when I pulled the top chamber off the lower chamber. But It does look like a queen cell, now that I look at it. Not sure.

I do have a question about the frame in this photo, however, for anyone that might wish to comment. Look at the left end. This is a frame from the original frames that I received when I bought my hives. Is that an area of drone cells. They look bigger.

This is one of several frames that has a lot of very dark comb. I plan to rotate my hive next spring. That will move this frame to the upper chamber. I had planned to move this frame to the outside position for a while and then eventually remove it and replace it with new foundation.

Any opinion on this plan? Is it a good idea? Is there a tried and true method for moving old comb out of a hive and replacing it with fresh foundation?

- Dan

[dzeller]

Oh... and no. the queen was not marked. I thought that they would be when I got the hive. I had seen some of the hives belonging to the guy I bought the hives from. His were marked.

Upon my first inspection a few days after I brought these hives home, I found the queens in both of the hives and neither of them was marked.

Here is one of my queens: Queen

[bk21701]

Yes I see drone cells in that bunch to the left. The queen cells I am talking about are on the bottom of the frame to the left. Follow the left piece of your frame grip to the bottom. You will see the 2 that I'm talking about.

The darker the comb is the older comb is. It gets to a point where you will want to replace the comb or use these frames in bait traps (if you are into baiting swarms). Just remember that wax absorbs toxins and any chemicals that have been used in the hive or on the foragers. I've read that every 3 to 4 years is a good time to replace frames with new foundation. Other people have different views on those numbers though. SO you may hear different.

[dzeller]

Hmmm...

I see what you are talking about. That is very interesting.

Since it appears to be just as dark as the rest of the comb around it, I would assume that it also is very old comb. Unless, of course, the bees just rework the old dark comb and it stays the same dark color.

So the question is: Would these queen cells be left over from a long time ago? Do queen cells get re-used? If the bees wanted to make a queen cell, would they make new wax or just rework the wax in the area?

Keeping these little critters is such a fascinating hobby. I can hardly wait until I feel like I know what I am doing. Sometimes I get carried away telling my friends about the bees. Some of them just gloss over and walk away. Others become just as fascinated as I am.

- Dan

[bk21701]

Bees will always keep uncapped queen cells in the hive for emergency queens and swarming. They are not capped and will not have an egg or larva in them if they hive is functioning as it should be.

If you have queen cells there that are capped but nothing hatched out, there is a good chance that your new queen stung the cells and killed the larva. Eventually they will get chewed down and cleaned out.

Your hives seem to be doing very well. It also looks that if you have a good winter you'll be splitting those hives in the spring.

[Mike Gillmore]

Great pics! I enjoyed browsing through your albums. Your colonies seem to be in excellent shape.

I noticed on a few pics that there were an extremely high number of stingers in your gloves and suit sleeve. It would be a good idea to wash your suit and gloves before you open the hive again. The alarm pheromone residue from those stingers will probably trigger an immediate defensive reaction from the bees if they're not cleaned up. They get cranky enough in the fall anyway, so anything you can do to keep them calm will help out.

They look good, keep up the great work!

[chevydmax04]

Dzeller, My wife also likes to come down with no veil on, last weekend she got stung once behind the ear, and twice just above the hairline. It's one of those times when you just hate to say "I told you so" but I could not resist to tell here that "I told you so"

[Bens-Bees]

Those look like some seriously hot bees. Geez louise... I can count thirty + stingers in one glove.

[dzeller]

Thanks for all the feedback.

Yeah, I was a little surprised by all the aggression. As I stated before, I am a newbee this year, so I am finding out all about seasonal behaviour as I go.

I had not been down in the lower hive body for several weeks - maybe 6 or 8. I had opened the upper brood chamber and pulled a few frames to check for problems from time to time all summer, but I had not been down into the lower chamber for some time.

I was very surprised at how aggressive they were when I started pulling frames from the lower chamber. They have typically been very mild-mannered bees. When I get home from work, I often walk over to my bee yard and stand just a couple of yards from my hives' entrances and watch activity for 2 or 3 minutes. I am rarely confronted by any overly-zealous guards.

But this inspection was quite different. I (or rather my gloves) had never been stung so many times. Surmising from some of the replies I have received, it sounds like my girls have a typical case of PWS - pre-winter-syndrome. I suppose I should have been ready for this.

- Dan

[Dalantech]

Excellent photos -has me wanting to shoot a hive again!

[dzeller]

Dalantech,

Beautiful photography. Really nice stuff.

My wife is a photographer, though mostly avocational. She fills in as a second shooter at weddings for a pro friend of ours and has a Shutterstock portfolio - mostly our kids, but they sell well enough to allow her to keep buying camera gear.

Here is her other bee pictures. I am not sure whether you could have browsed to it from the links that I provided before. I keep telling her that she should put some of the bees up in her shutterstock gallery.

- Dan

[Dalantech]

Your wife has a really good eye for light and composition