Beesource Beekeeping Forums banner

Colony update here in Pa

177K views 703 replies 83 participants last post by  laketrout 
#1 ·
This has been one of the strangest Winters in quite awhile.
We've had temps in the low 50's numerous times so far and the bees have been bringing in a pale yellow pollen.

Was checking out the three colonies my friend has and saw that one of the "stronger" colonies has finally died.
There were many dead bees on the comb and looks like they either starved or froze to death in place.
Recently he and I were doing an inspection on a warm day and we saw a few hundred bees and the queen in that hive along with plenty of honey stores left. Didn't look good at that point.

What was the "weakest" colony going into Winter is now booming! Still trying to figure that one out.
It has two deeps and a medium with lots of honey and they had eaten most of the sugar we placed on the inner cover.
Btw, that sugar did a great job absorbing moisture.

Earlier this Winter we removed a medium super from it that didn't have much honey stores.
But after seeing how full the hive is, I pulled a medium super full of honey off the dead hive and placed it on the "weak" hive.
Now they'll have a little more elbow room and more stores to chew on.

The third colony is still alive but the population is down. Not sure if that one will make it till Spring.
He is planning to split the "weak" hive at least once and maybe twice if things continue looking good.

Allen
 
See less See more
#223 ·
I checked one hive today that I wasn't thinking was going to make it. 2 weeks ago they had brood in all stages on one deep frame about 5" diameter. Today 2 weeks later they have filled that frame 1/2 and are working on their second that's about 1/3 or so with brood on both sides. So they are also it seems going to be Ok!!! I checked the hive right next to it and they have 1/2 of a deep frame capped drone both sides. I think when the weather gets up to 70 watch out!!! Swarms are going to be on. I just saw one in MD, so it's coming soon!!!
 
#224 ·
Yep, been watching the progress coming up the east coast on swarms too delber. I want to keep my girls happy (with room) until I can get my splits made. I need to get a couple swarm traps up around both my yards soon. I was able to put seven traps out a week or so ago the other side of the state. Pretty early there, but it will give foragers a chance to discover them ahead of swarming season.
 
#226 ·
I checked on the hives yesterday. The one hive was super strong. As soon as I removed the inner cover, I was being bombarded with angry bees. I smoked them down and within 15-20 seconds I was getting nailed again. They found a small hole in my veil where the zippers from the suit and veil all come together and about 5 got inside. I'm sure it was a funny site to see if you were watching from a distance. I will be picking up my 5 new queens this coming Sunday and plan to do 2 splits on this particular hive. The queen in this hive is unbelieveably strong and has 2 complete deeps and one med completely full of brood. I will be re-queening two hives and putting those existing queens into the nuc boxes that I made over the weekend. They're laying, just not quick enough to strengthen those hives for upcoming flow. The foundationless frames that I installed on April 7th are completely drawn and filled with brood. I added some more foundationless frames yesterday.

I did see drones in one of the hives and capped drones in the others.
 
#228 ·
I'm 3 weeks in to my first year of bee keeping. I started with 1 package and a marked queen. 10 large frames with wired foundation. at the advice of Craig, I used an empty super on top as a spacer for the quail feeder kept inside the hive on top of the frames. I got a chance to pull a couple frames this evening and have a look. the majority of the center 2 frames are capped. the center of the next frame over had larvae in them. I did notice walking up to the hive there were very few bees coming and going. upon opening the hive, the bees were not very active. did i make a mistake by opening the hive? maybe I should wait for the temp to rise before opening again. so far the hive has gone thru 7-8 L of 1:1 syrup and Honey B Healthy supplement. From what i understand, the flow should start soon if it hasnt already.

So much to learn!
 
#229 ·
bubbabee, the nature of a package is similar to a swarm in that there's a good ammt. of activity in the beginning and then it will slow down as there are new bees hatching out and there's a couple weeks time lap for them to draw out comb and get the bees hatched in the new comb. In a month you'll have a much better hive and have good activity at the entrance. May I say. . . Welcome to beekeeping!!! This is a great site to watch and learn from. You'll find there is MUCH info on here you'll find. Some will work well for you and some won't. All of it you and I can learn from so don't discount anything too quick. Welcome abord!!!
 
#231 ·
I received my 5 queens yesterday. I re-queened two weaker hives and put the old queens in two nuc boxes. I did a triple split on my strongest hive started two new hives and one new nuc with 3 of the new queens. The queen in this strong hive will have the population back up by June.

It cost me $26 to make 4 nucs using these plans; http://www.beesource.com/build-it-yourself/5-frame-nuc-d-coates-version/

I'll use the spare nuc as a swarm trap.
 
#232 ·
Today, I removed the quail feeder from inside the hive and replaced it with an entrance feeder. They seem to be slowing down on taking the syrup. the most recent 1.75L took 8 days. last couple weeks they were taking 1.75 L every 4-5 days.
I got a look inside and it looks as though they have 4 frames mostly drawn out and the inside half of 2 outer frames partially drawn. Leaving 2 and a half frames on both ends empty.

With this said, how is their progress?

thanks Delber and Allen for the response and welcome
 
#233 ·
Is anyone in PA. getting swarms yet?
Well i put 5 deeps{for honey} on my 5 of my strongest hives and they seem happy . I'm going to do a couple splits next week. Plus i'm going to start making queens in JUNE. I love the spring build up :)
 
#234 ·
Glock - I have about 10 traps out, none yet. I saw a post of a swarm caught near Lancaster in the "post your swarm dates" thread. Last year I caught a small swarm on Mothers day weekend. They built up nicely and were strong coming out of winter.

I made my rounds today and split all 4 of my hives- Queen and a couple frames of bees + a few shakes. Lots of drones and young larva in the donor hives. NUCs are all 6 frame.
 
#235 ·
I can confirm Lancaster, someone in our club sent a note out on Wed. (5/1) that his hive had swarmed and was looking for someone to come collect it (don't think he wanted or is prep'd for more hives).

I had capped cells on multiple frames in at least one of my hives that same day. I pulled two of those frames out and into two new nucs, and I think there's still a cell left for the main hive. That hive was moved to very rural outyard Friday so if they swarm, they swarm. Told the owner of the property (also a small beekeeper) to keep a watch and if he sees them and wants them, they're his. :)
 
#236 ·
I'm the contact person for our club when swarm calls come in and haven't heard anything yet.
Am hoping to increase our hives with swarms this year.

Two hives have capped drone comb and one has lots of dark fat drones.
Even saw one with milky colored eyes.
None yet in the third hive.
After inspection today, it looks like we are getting our first honey crop and you could say I'm a little bit excited. :banana:
Took a road trip to Forest Hill Woodworking for foundation and frames recently and I've got a bunch of shallows ready to go.
Guess its time to pick out the glass jars we are going to use and get the honey labels designed.
 
#237 ·
I actually just read about drones that have whiteish eyes and it said that they are blind. It's a genetic defect in some hives. The first time they fly out will be their last. It's sad, but interesting for sure.

On another note I haven't seen any swarms yet either, but I know it's ripe. I have drones in all but one of my hives. (this one about a month ago was only about the size of a grapefruit and now as of about 3 days ago is about 3 frames of brood) I checked my swarm boxes and nothing yet, but I'm hopefull. I have 2 other boxes that I haven't checked yet, but hopefully next week I'll get to check what's up with them. Other than that I' definitely excited to be back into the bee arena!!!
 
#238 ·
Got home and finished off another swarm trap to deploy in a big white pine in the back yard tonight. I have two local yards, two swarm traps up in each. I'll add one more in my back yard. Going home to see mom this weekend, I have seven traps deployed in western PA, Indiana County. Will be checking them this weekend. Probably a little early for that area yet, but you never know. I know one has attracted wasps (dad checked them for me last weekend) - so I will evict them before they make too many nests in there. Also Morel season, need to get out and try and find a mess. :banana:
 
#239 ·
Checked my hives today and one was getting ready to swarm. The bees had slimmed down the queen and there were two sealed queen cells along with about five queen cups that had larvae in on the bottom of the frames. I pull out the queen and put her in a nuc with three frames of sealed and unsealed brood with nurse bees along with a frame of honey/pollen and a frame of drawn comb. The way this queen had been laying, I will probably need to move from the nuc to a ten frame next week.
 
#240 ·
I also did a quick (10 minute) inspection today on one hive and it was boiling out w/ bees. I added a box last week because they were using one box and had a second on top that was only 1/2 drawn, but they wern't using it yet. Well today they had that box drawn out full of bees. Next week I'll be moving things around to get them do start drawing / working in the box I added on Monday. VERY COOL!!!
 
#241 ·
Popped a couple tops of the hives I split from last weekend to see if there were any queen cells in there. I saw lots of cells both capped and open. Just tilted the boxes and looked up between the frames, then gently replaced. I'll stay out now till the first week of June other than making sure they don't need another super. Seem to be getting into some decent nectar lately. More rain coming over night hopefully, lets get this flow going!
 
#242 ·
Checked all 10 of my hives for queens to day and all have eggs in them. I seem to have a little nector coming in and i add supers to 5 hives{deeps i use all deeps} I have alot of drones hatching but no swarm cells and i have added some blank frames to some of the strong hives brood nest.
Put on my SSBs and am going to fog for the first time this sunday as long as the weather is good. I have some varroa but not alot so maybe if i fog on weekly time table maybe i can keep them at manageable level. Going to do a mite count {sticky boards} the next 24 hours.
This is my 4th year and i didn't have to buy bees and things are going good for now.;)
 
#243 ·
The bears got me on Saturday night. I went out to the backyard around midnight to put mesh over the entrances of the 2 hives that I was going to move on Sunday. I came around the corner and saw the hives strewn all down through the woods. For the next 3 hours I was cleaning up. I moved the surviving hives and nucs onto my back deck. There was nothing else I could do until daylight. At 4am, they were back...Momma and her 2 yearling cubs. One of the cubs was on the deck and knocked over a nuc. I stepped out onto the deck, screaming at this 100+ lb cub. It stood up on its hind legs and now we were 6 feet apart looking eye to eye. I'm still screaming like a mad man. The cub left the deck with me in pursuit. I chased them away and didn't see them again. I called and reported the incident to the PA Game Commission. I placed the hives on the roof of my house out of reach. I left one nuc down in the yard for lost bees. The bears came back early Monday morning and got the nuc. A PGC Officer came to the house and did an investigation and took inventory for the damages. A "bear damage claim for compensation" was filed. The PGC is going to compensate me for my loss including bees.

I had planned on getting an electric fence up but the bears were faster. My plans for this weekend are to put up an 8x12 hog fence with solar charger.

By the way, the Officer told me that the complaint must be reported within 5 days of the incident to be considered for compensation.
 
#244 ·
Bummer Mayday. I have plans to move some hives to Indiana County, PA this year. They would be in bear territory too. I'm preparing for a fence, but have not decided on the site location yet.

Any total losses?

Thanks for the information about the 5 day reporting.
 
#245 ·
Mayday, sorry to hear about the bear problem. I didn't know the PGC pays compensation.

Finally, the two colonies that were lagging are kicking it into gear. Both had a bunch of new bees orienting in front of the hive this afternoon and more foragers were out flying.

The booming hive seemed agitated yesterday. Like they were frantic to get out and bring in nectar and pollen.
I've got a wooden entrance reducer on it and its set to the larger opening. But there was still a major traffic jam coming and going.
So, while wearing shorts and a t-shirt I attempted to remove the reducer. The were a lot of bees flying and orienting at the time.
Couldn't get it to budge and as I turned away, surprise, one got me right on the nose.
It felt as bad as the way Marcia Brady's nose looked when she got hit with the football. LOL
I suited up and got it done.

No swarm cells in any of them yet and may be splitting the stronger colony next week.
I plan to move the queen to another yard in a Nuc and let the other half raise their own queen in the same spot That should give them a brood break for a bit.
Hope the other two colonies will build up enough for a split in the next couple of weeks.
 
#246 ·
PAHunter62.....Total loss was under $500 in materials and possibly another $400-500 in lost honey revenues. It could have been much worse. I am going to order a couple of new queens from Kelley's today.

Allen....I didn't know that the PGC compensated losses either. They have a bear damage fund in their budget. Since it is early in the season, there is still money in the fund. The Officer told me that they compensate losses for livestock, poultry and honey bees.
 
#249 ·
so I checked one hive today that I had to bring into the house to try to save them because they were so small. I took them back outside early April and inspected and they had a 5" patch of brood on one frame. That was the cluster size. My word were they small. Well about 6 weeks later they have the upper box (my own 7 frame deep) with 6 frames full of brood and the 7th with a small patch and the rest w/ nectar. I'm shocked at how fast a almost dead hive sprung back.
 
#250 ·
Anyone else worried about the lovely forecast for rain every day this month during the heat of the flow? The locust is in full bloom in my area and it drizzelled all day here washing the nectar away. I sure hope the forecasters are as incorrect as ever, or it will be long year buying sugar.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top