Beesource Beekeeping Forums banner

Today in the Apiary

686K views 4K replies 397 participants last post by  AR1 
#1 ·
I will stick this thread at the top so we can have sort of a beekeepers diary. It will be neat to look back in time, in time. Share what work you did, observations, stories about things that happened in the apiary. Musings while you have your morning coffee while watching the bees. Let's see where this goes.

I checked a new swarm that moved into some empty boxes I had stacked about 5 days ago. Saw the queen when I transferred them into a new hive with frames of foundation. They're building comb, but filling every cell with nectar/feed. No eggs. Will have to put a frame with eggs into it right away.
 
#30 ·
I think I know why my Italians are lagging behind in honey production. When checking on mite drop today, I stood there and watched the comings and goings on all three hives. I noticed some bees going into the Italian hive, that did not look very Italian:scratch: No robbing going on, nor fighting of any kind, I think my Italians may have swarmed awhile ago, and I never noticed:sleep: The Italian Queen was not marked, but I may be able to tell if it's the same one. Some of the bees I saw today looked kind of like some of the feral bees I've seen at my water trough, and, at the pollen feeding station I had out in Feb/March. Looks like if they did swarm the little suckers ignored all my swarm traps I had out. Oh well....
So far everything else is okay, Hive #1 is still dropping a lot of mites over 100, at least, the other two maybe 20 - 40 on the entire sliding board.
 
#32 ·
Picked up 3 Queens from Tubbs Apiaries in Mize, MS today. When I was out I bought some oxalic acid at Ace hardware and a deep cycle battery at Walmart. When I got back home I treated two of my hives with my new OAV vaporizer and then went into a strong hive to make splits. I found the queen pretty quickly and caged her. I then began pulling frames and putting them in 5 frame nuc boxes. I got two of them done with new queens when it started to rain. So I put this hive back together and released the queen back into the hive. During the rain storm I caught up on last weeks episode of Game of Thrones, it was a great episode. When it ended the rain had passed, so back to the bees I went. Went into a different hive to make my last nuc. Found this queen in the third medium box. Since her brood nest is in medium frames I put this nuc in an 8 frame medium box. Went into two problem hives that I split 7 weeks ago and found both queens, marked Russians that I thought went awol. I was glad to see these two queens but kind of disappointed with their laying pattern. I thought about going into my TBH and my 3 recent package installs but decided that would have to wait till another day. Only got one sting today through my nitrile groves.
 
#33 ·
I checked all my hives today, lifted every frame for a look-see. I couldn't identify even one queen, I still need to learn that skill. The comb is still fragile so no flipping frames around. I saw what I think is capped brood but I'd like some advice on that, can you please tell me if that's what this is?

Bee Honeycomb Beehive Honeybee Insect


Bee Honeybee Beehive Insect Membrane-winged insect
 
#34 ·
In your first photo you can see the difference between the capped honey at the top and the capped brood at the bottom. The honey is lighter and flatter than the brood, which, in these photos, is yellower and domed.
 
#35 ·
Congrats on finishing the frames Barry. Im going to do it tonight. Added boxes to my 2 production hives, they are still filling fast, filled 3 supers so far each, it will slow down soon. Checked and saw a virgin has been mated in one of my splits,she is laying a great pattern. added a box to another split, Moved 3 nucs with ripe QC's to mating yard. Hive that was drawing foundationless up, has straightened it out after 2 interventions, looks great now. Good day, mighty hot. G
 
#38 ·
Today I decided to put some feed on a second split made from the same hive in case they weren't taking enough in. The first split taken produced enough viable queen cells to utilize some in a second one. Hate to waste a good queen cell or two. I plan to split it some more later in the year. Slow day with the bees.
 
#40 ·
Did my inspection yesterday on my 1st hive. Had added a second deep the weekend before. They had built out comb on 6 of the 10 frames and had capped brood on 4 of the 6 frames already in upper box. Completly removed the entrance reducer. Hive is doing really well. Also saw the queen in the lower box.
 

Attachments

#41 ·
Added a deep brood box to each of my 2 hive yesterday evening. With all of the rain we've had in teh past month, I haven't been paying them much attention other than feeding them. I started these 2 hives as nucs on 4/25 and when I added the new brood boxes, all of the frames were drawn out and even the outside of the outer frames were filled with nextar but not yet capped. I bet they love their new room.
 
#42 ·
Didn't happen today - but several weeks ago our bee club was offering Carnolian queen cells - several people were placing an order for queen cells so wanted to include everyone if they wanted any.

I didn't call anyone back, but the day before they were to arrive I got a call saying they had extra queen cells - was I interested? I said "Sure, I'll take 2." and was given instructions to make a split that evening so the bees were queenless before putting in the queen cell.

I got into the one hive after work - which ended up taking up the rest of the daylight hours. They weren't a happy bunch and at first I was trying to find the queen so I could put her and some brood in a hive themselves - and put the queen cell in the now queenhouse hive. Couldn't find th queen, so took some capped brood and bees and put in a hive. I didn't get to the other hive to make the split.

Got the queen cells and put the one in the now queenless hive with capped brood. I took one frame of the capped brood, put on top of another hive with a double screen board and hoped for the best. This was done on May 22nd and I'm not supposed to get into the hives for at least 3 weeks.

I don't know how things are going, but the "instant split" hive ended up being that the whole hive was using the top entrance. Once the double screen board was put on, all returning bees ended up in the top hive with the queen cell. I had to put another hive on top because they were so crowded. I'm anxious to get into that hive to see if they left the queen cell hatch.

I've never gotten new queens or queen cells before - so I'm anxious to see how things go.
 
#46 ·
Today I added a second deep brood box to half a dozen hives & robbed a frame with young larva & eggs to add to a hive that's been queenless since my last check a week ago. The queenless hive had built a queen cell but had nothing to put into it......I tore it down and added the pilfered frame. :applause:
 
#51 · (Edited)
Newbie yakking here: After days of rain and cool weather I went to check on bees. I saw one of two hives with a lot of activity. Bees flying, gathering at entrance and climbing on hive. I also saw on this same hive about 25 flies crawling on the top of the cover. The second hive appeared normal. The flies bugged me.

I went ahead and removed the feeders after 5 weeks of feeding in Central Virginia area. I opened the hive for inspection. I saw a lot of burr comb being built up on top frame bars and found what I thought "might be" one or two swarm cells. They were buried in bees so could not see that well. Found the queen, found tons of capped brood. Did not see eggs and larvae or missed it. The other odd thing was that the bees seem to be avoiding building out the right hand side frames, while the left side is crammed with activity. Found the same pattern in the hive next door. Both are drawing comb in the box above added last week.

Anyway, as I started the day panicking, I ended the day thinking I caught the bees on practice flights, thus the activity. I am going back in tomorrow to look again at the "might be" Swarm cells. Since I saw the queen, I am thinking these cells are actually filled with honey.
I installed SHB traps last week and caught a total of 3 beetles between 2 hives. I did not see any beetles on foundation.

I learned: I tend to panic when frames are loaded with bees to the point where I have trouble identifying activities occurring on the frames. I used new frame holders today and spent more time observing verses crushing bees with my hands.

Plenty of excitement for me today.
 
#53 ·
Today I did my third, and final, Snelgrove Board split on my own bees. It takes me a hours to do one because my colonies are so huge. (The one today involved three deeps and three mediums!) Found Queen Iris and got her safely stowed away into a nuc box early on so I could be sure of where she was in the ensuing rumpus. Not sure I got the assortment of deep brood frames exactly right, but when you're dealing with nearly 20 of them in three deeps plus some more in a medium, it gets complicated. I'm sure I got at least three frames with usable eggs, or very young larvae, in the queenless box, so it should work out OK, I expect. Gave the QR part a lot of room below the board. One of the flipper openings on the Snelgrove board- the one I wanted to use, of course - wouldn't work, so note to myself next time: move them all before you've got it in place under a deep and a medium!

Gave a frame of capped brood from Iris to my beloved old Queen Buttercup who is living in a nuc while waiting for her new Senior Apartment to get organized. Saw her, but she doesn't have a lot of bees these days. Her supercedure (taking place below the Snelgrove) seems, from the outside at least, to be humming along but it's too early to disturb it to check for brood.

Two days ago I went into Queen Fern's upper box (above the Snelgrove) and harvested two frames with cells that went into the queen castle, so I've got two more splits under way, beyond the one over the Snelgrove board. No signs of swarming in the QR part of Fern, so that's good.

Tomorrow, I need to check my fourth colony and probably add a deep to grow out her brood nest some more. That colony has been getting augmented by lost and confused bees begging thier way in during the extended Snelgrove processes. So it's a good idea to work from largest to smaller when planning sequential manipulations.

And tomorrow night my friend's hive, which I am babysitting over the summer before it moves down to FL in the late Fall, will arrive. I got it moved up on to the trailer two days ago, but the nights have been so warm that the silly bees aren't all going in at night. Saturday night temps will be in the low 40s so that should settle the matter and I can bring them here with little loss of bees. Plan to divide that one later next week so I have a QR colony to receive (or donate) any bees that won't fit in the smaller-sized colony that's going to FL. That's all the Snelgrove boards I own, so I hope that's it for the season! It should be an easier process since last weekend I went through and did an intial arrangement with the upcoming split in mind.

Bees seem to be doing fine but the season and flow are weird, and blooming somewhat out of order. Haven't seen any signs of swarming in my colonies; using both Matt Davey's technique of opening the sides of the brood nest AND Walt Wright's of checkboarding overhead with alternating full and empty (but all drawn) frames. This season is so out of sync, however, I'm not sure what I see will apply in normal years.

Staggeringly tired, and resolved to figure out how to avoid having colonies that are so tall in the future. It takes enormous, and unnecessary, effort to move 10-frame equipment in such giant piles. Can't wait until I can pull the top sections off, and have normal-sized stacks, again!

Enj.
 
#55 ·
Checked slide out trays again for mite drop while using MASQ. Hive #1 still dropping a huge amount, while hives #2 and #3 only dropping 20 - 30 each. Those nasty little mites are quick when they want to be.
Looks like business as usual in all three hives, plenty of coming and going.

Oh, I ordered the wrong size of foundation :-(, so had to re-order the correct size. I went ahead and ordered some unassembled boxes and frames to fit the "wrong" foundation, so I will have 3 "Western" supers, one for each hive, to go along with my Illinois supers, oh well, they'll work.
 
#56 ·
Decided to do the first extraction of the year. This year has been a great year for honey. Normally I have one and a half supers to extract by now. This year has provided me with three to four supers per hive. One of which is a deep and two mediums. Anyway, I usually shake and brush the bees then transfer comb from one box to an empty box on the wagon, take the empty off and fill it in the wagon from the next box and so on. Well, with a stack that tall, by the time I get to the lower super, which happens to be the deep, these bees have been shaken and brushed twice already. They are also being condensed from six boxes into two. To top it off, I thought getting an early start was a good thing. Well that's not the case either. More bees at home... Multiple stings and hundreds of angry bees attacking anything that moved, I was not able to finish pulling frames from the lower deep super. They were just too hot. almost couldn't get the top back on for the fray of the attack mode. Waited an hour and went back in with better luck this time. So, I guess what I've learned from this is I've got to find a better way to get these supers off, whether it be fume boards, escapes or something else. Living and learning...
 
#58 ·
Today I did my first ever inspection bare handed with NO stings. Was nervous until i realized slow and steady was the way. I got one bee under my finger and felt the "buzz" and moved my finger. She happily went one her way. I made my first split into a 5 frame nuc today too. Time will tell how it does.
 
Top