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Morning inspection -- a lesson in "should'ves"

2K views 8 replies 6 participants last post by  AugustC 
#1 ·
This morning's earlier encounter with the sickly bee made me change plans to inspect today instead of tomorrow. The experience was a newbie one, and filled with "should haves". Should have put in a SHB trap. Should have taken care of cross-combing when queen was laying lightly during dearth. Should have filled in or removed eco floor. Should have kept a bleeping notebook. We're heading into autumn, which local beeks tell me is a time of flow, so while I have no problem adding an SBH trap of some kind and doing something about the eco-floor, I am loathe to cut into the brood comb -- cross-combed, but not horribly so. I can still take out two clumps of 3-bars-each, and the bars on either side are straight. In fact, all in all, of the 20 bars they've now built, all but 6 are in fine fettle.

Okay -- so out to the beehive to check for mites and general health. First, I mist with a bit of minted water. They buzz some. I try some smoke, and I swear, it just changes them from peacefully ignoring me to a buzzing swarm of death. So, I sit for 5 minutes waiting for them to calm down, then remove gabled roof. Immediately, I see a couple of cockroaches scurrying, and there is feces on top of the back few bars and along the trough edge where the roof sits on its frame. (Note to self: re-think this whole gabled roof business. while it is pretty, it creates grooves for critters to hang out in.) I loosen the back follower board (all the way to the back, not actually contributing to managing hive space) and move the back bars so I can begin taking bars out. Everything -- even those back bars with no comb -- has propolis on it. 10 bars in, I pull the first comb -- it's half way built, has a few dozen bees on it, and 5 beetles. I crush 4 of them, and smash the 5th into the wax. The next 3 bars are 3/4 built and covered with bees. I don't see much in the way of capped honey, but there's a bunch of nectar and pollen.




Each bar gets pulled and placed on the inspection stand -- I get close, but do not see mites anywhere. The bees are really fairly calm despite the smoking incident:). When they get interested, I mist a bit, and step back. This usually results in bees lapping up the minty water. Maybe this creates a little accidental IPM?



When I hit the brood nest -- which is about 10 bars wide, contained between 3 bars of nectar-filled comb (closest to the entrance) and 7 bars stretching to the back of the hive (which now has its own entrances) -- I also hit cross-combing. The first couple bars are fine -- nice, straight. One has a somewhat weird brood pattern -- top to bottom but on one side of the comb and not the other!



I am hoping this means the other side hatched, because the next bar I pull is quite pretty.



Then come the cross-combed bars. These are the original crappy ones I made. I should have corrected this during the dearth. I can still pull them out in clumps of three, and they are just filled with bees and brood. The picture below is the "first" brood bar from the entrance -- it has more open space, some capped brood, and the other side of the clump is packed nicely.




I still didn't see the queen, but my guess is she's in that clump somewhere. By the time I made my way through the brood nest, the bees were getting fairly riled, and getting them off the bars/edges so I could close up was an interesting challenge. First, they propolize the daylights out of everything, so it is incredibly sticky. Second, the hive tool is Satan Incarnate, so nudging them with that does move them, though not usually down into the hive. I tried blowing on them and indeed, they moved, but also got super-pissed-off. I simply walked away from the hive but the sweet-and-stupid pitbull got stung. I then decided to try smoking them and for some reason, this time it worked! Honestly, I can't think of what I did differently. I smoked over the top of the bars, and within a minute or so, half were back inside. Another smoking and another half followed them. This was enough to begin really pushing bars together, and a few minutes later, the deed was done, cover was back on. Oh! And two giant stick bugs ran out of the hive, along with a couple of roaches:eek:. Sigh.

I realize this is a long message. If any of you have eco-floors, I'm curious how they are working for you. At first blush, the eco-floor seems like a great idea for both temperature stability and natural apicentric beekeeping. In the wild, most tree cavities have a bottom, that bottom has stuff in it, and that stuff includes some bugs. But I find cockroaches nasty. I only saw those few SHBs on the furthest comb, but stick bugs? Where did they come from? I'm thinking that the semi-tropics may not be the right environment for an eco-floor. On the other hand, overall, the bees seem fine! I'm going to ask a local beek from one of the clubs to do an inspection with me. Someone who doesn't hate TBHs (or at least doesn't care).

I feel like I owe the bees an apology:eek:. That I promise I'll do better from here on out. I'll keep notes and draw pictures. I'll use beetle traps and fix cross-combing. Promise.
 
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#2 ·
That doesn't look too bad to me - except I don't see any honey. Unless there is quite a lot that you just didn't have in the pictures i would feed them. I would leave the comb alone until such a time that they can build new comb to fix it. Might not be an issue in your locaton.
 
#5 ·
Not sure given location, either. There were lots of frames filled with nectar and the hive is smelling wonderful. I'll give them another few weeks to see what happens, then see about feeding. Our winter is odd: in any given week, we can vary from 70 F to 25 F, with sunshine and rain both. Tends to be cooler when it's sunny, but then days often warm up to 50-60 degrees. We are just starting the fall cool down: we are now in the high 80s for highs and high 60s for lows!
 
#3 ·
Not seeing any mites on your adult bees doesn't give you any valid information about your mite levels. It is very rare to see them on living bees as they are concealed on the bees' bodies more often than not, until the infestation is so pronounced that there are no more places for them to attach other than the highly visible ones.

If you want to know your colonies' mite infestation level you have to do one of the "roll" tests. (You could also be doing sticky boards if your hive was a Lang, or a TBH with some modification.) But rhe fastest and easiest way to find out the state of mite infestation, today or tomorrow, is to do a sugar roll. Chances are you have the equipment necessary on hand right now.

I agree that a single sightiing of wonky-winged pupa being hauled out of the hive isn't the end of the world. But if I didn't have current mite-level numbers on that colony it would prompt me to test, ASAP. You could also uncap a section of drone brood pupae and pull them out and see how many have mites on them and how many on each pupa. (Icky task - sugar rolls are easier.)


ETA: What's an "eco-floor"?

And also perhaps your smoke at the end of the inspection was cooler than your initial smoke, so less annoying to the bees. I try to remember to light my smoker at least 20 minutes or so before I'm going to open a hive so that it can settle down to a cool smolder. As for blowing on bees, the breath pressure that works is very, very soft and steady - the force you'd need to blow out a candle is probably too much. You can practice on a frame some time when you have a moment. Start with the barest sigh of a breath and then increase until you can move them around effectively, then increase more until you see them get cranky. That way you can train yourself to do it correctly.

Enj.
 
#4 ·
ETA: What's an "eco-floor"?

Enj.
From Backyard Beekeeping:
"The eco-floor is described in Phil Chandler’s YouTube video linked here. His idea is that in nature, bees live in horizontal hollow logs with other insect species, like earwigs, in an ecosystem, and maybe they help regulate mite levels by ingesting them. The organic material of the floor could support these species and also absorb some of the moisture condensation and keep the hive humid, which he believes bees like."

I had lots of time to think about the TBH build, and the eco-floor seemed like a good idea. Still seems so...but requires better carpentry skills, perhaps.

I will look into doing a sugar roll. Thank you.
 
#6 ·
I'm wondering what you can use for a SHB trap in a TBH? It's a one of the few drawbacks of TBH's: no consistency in size so very few "accessories" available as there are for Lang's. I have SHB oil traps made to hang between Lang frames, but can't see how that would work in a TBH. One of my TBH's has removable sliding panels at the bottom - when I pull one out I have a small rock in one hand and try to squish the SHB's before the little demons fly off. That's about the extent of my SHB control measures.
Also, just my opinion, but I think you should cut off that small "lobe" in one of the photos. As for the bars that have "grown" together, I think you will have to leave them and then slowly move them toward the back of the hive by gradually "feeding" empty bars into the brood nest (add one bar between 2 straight combs). Once they've moved to the back and not being used for brood, you can remove them. Are your bars pushed very tightly together, no gaps at all? Besides reducing the propolis issue, it will keep out a lot of other insects (although the darn earwigs seem to be able to slip through non-existent gaps).
I enjoyed seeing your hive and the photos...all we can do is learn from our "mistakes." It's harder for TBH beeks because we don't have the same support as the Langsters.
 
#7 ·
Thank you, Marysia2. I've seen a couple of nice designs for SHB traps for TBHs and because I have that additional floor space below the comb, I'm pretty sure I can make a trap and set it down there. My next hive will have traps preset, I think!

I do need cut that little tab off -- by the time I got to that comb, the bees were entirely ticked off, so this weekend (providing the rain stops -- we're having the opposite problem of CA this year), I'll start at the other end of the hive. I have been inserting comb between the crossed bars. That's why there are two clumps of 3 bars rather than a solid block of 7! Early on, I split them and began placing partially built straight bars between them. It's worked pretty well, and the bees have finally built out the inserted bars and are mostly keeping things pretty straight. I'll get more aggressive with those bars after we get through our fall flow -- which is supposedly getting started now:).
 
#8 ·
<First, I mist with a bit of minted water.......smoke...........from peacefully ignoring me to a buzzing swarm of death. >

I'd just stick with the smoke. Not sayin it was this that set them off but the it may have been that scented water.

havent done TBH but on my bucket list. I've used foundationless in my Langs and I find that from mid summer on, very little comb was produced. I'd try and just leave the comb as it is for the winter and come spring, cut it all apart and reorganize.
 
#9 ·
I use a smoker to smoke myself to ensure I don't have any offensive deodourant, or soap related smells the bees dislike. I also smoke the air above the hive before opening. Other than that I use a water mister with a little peppermint oil in to get the bees back down when putting bars together. There is only one of my colonies I have ever had to actually smoke to calm them and that was my fault for handling them wrong to start with. Two of my colonise actively dislike being smoked (and yes I am ensuring the smoke isn't too hot etc etc). They go from paying no attention to me to getting very "interested".
 
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