New beek. New pictures and new questions

[keljonma]

The hive is fairly small still. There have been a fair amount of bees coming and going except for the past couple days which have been really windy and fairly cool. I haven't seen any bees hanging around outside the hive. All the frames in the bottom super are completely drawn out, although one frame still doesn't have anything in it. I put another super on top of that one last week but they have just barely started to draw the comb in those frames.


That was the only mite I saw and I didn't see any deformed bees, but I wasn't looking for them either. I didn't see anything unusual about the larvae. The only thing I saw unusual at all today was at the bottom of the hive it looked like there was a little pile of sawdust? Is that normal? I should have taken a picture of that, but my son was acting as cameraman and was getting jumpy at that point. He was stung a couple days ago and hasn't quite got his nerve back yet. He did better than I expected of him though, I was proud of him for not giving up.

Doesn't sound like they are getting ready to swarm to me...but maybe someone else will pop in with a different response.

The stuff that looked like sawdust - do you have carpenter ants or termites in the hive? Could it be pollen granules?



Good for your son getting back in the game. My dh, TR, is *only* the bee photographer - usually from a safe distance. Anything with a stinger has tagged him during his lifetime, so he is overly cautious. Having said that, though, where would I be without his photos of what I am seeing and doing for educational and show and tell purposes.

 

[lorihadams]

Okay, have you moved those bees out of the nuc box? If you haven't you need to.

I get my hives tomorrow and I'm very excited. I agree about the queen cell, if the existing queen isn't doing her thing then they may be replacing her. As long as you have plenty of room in the hive then I wouldn't worry about swarming just yet.

We just had an incident that was covered on the news, a man that had bees in the wall of his apartment for 3 YEARS, and never really had any problems other than a few stings over that time frame, called an exterminator when they swarmed into his apartment.

They killed the entire colony and removed 2 30 gallon trash cans of dead honey bees and honey comb from the walls. There has been so much outrage over this that my husband called the producer at the news station and begged them to do a follow up story with some beekeepers so that people knew they had a better option than calling an exterminator. So sad.

 

[valmom]

Oh, that's so sad! I am pretty sure there are people who would come in and re-locate the bees from situations like that. I can't imagine fumigating them

Keljonma- I was thinking having a sharply peaked lexan roof so the snow slides off and to the outside of the haybales. Sort of like what people make to keep snow load off ornimental shrubs only not wood. That would give air flow under the peak and good air space inside the hay bale enclosure with out having to dig it out of the snow multiple times a winter.

 

[keljonma]

Lori that is just awful! Don't these people read the news about honeybee colony problems?


Val, around here I have seen trees, bushes, and ornamentals wrapped in burlap; no wood or lexan covering though. Interesting.

 

[keljonma]

OK! I have 2 deeps for brood and will put the queen excluder above those. But I do need another super or 2. Can you get away with fewer supers if you swap out the frames with honey to harvest it and put in empty frames? I am thinking about how to (relatively inexpensively!) harvest the honey and the cheapest centrifuge I have found is hand powered and does 2 frames at a time. If I harvest out 4 or 6 frames periodically instead of waiting and doing 2 or more whole supers at once be easier?

Also- are 2 deeps enough for them to winter over in using their own honey stores in there? I will keep an eye on them (I am putting them fairly close to the house so I can get to them in the snow and am thinking of how to keep them from being buried in snow) and am expecting to feed them at some point this winter, but how do I know when?

I have so many questions! It reminds me of when we first got chickens

A super that is used for colony growth will get full of propolis, ime. My beek mentor told me to always keep the supers and frames for surplus honey collection separate and never use them for colony expansion to keep them cleaner. I understand about the frames because they would get ugly fast with bee brood in them. And I think my mentor uses chemicals for bee treatments (I don't) and that could be why he keeps the supers separate as well. That way no chemicals could taint his honey (at least to his mind).

Your bees should be "put to bed" for winter in late autumn with enough honey stores to get them through the winter. You don't want to open the hive unnecessarily in the winter. We have a large group of hedges about 15 feet behind the hives for a windbreak. But we had planned to surround our hives with an igloo of straw bales to help block the wind. Unfortunately, while many people were selling hay last autumn, we had trouble finding straw that wouldn't cost an arm and a leg. We didn't want to spend big$ for straw to sit out in the yard all winter.

Reinbeau is in New England and could probably help you with the honey and winter questions for your area better than I. Have you joined a beekeeper association in your county yet? That would definitely be a place for a wealth of knowledge....

I would think you would want more than 2 deeps for colony build up. Personally, I would add mediums for continued growth. (I should add here that my whole hive is medium 8-frame equipment.)

ETA: Like Chickens, Bees don't read the books either!

valmom, I have had coffee and more sleep since I answered your last post. I apologize.... I never should try to be helpful after 3 hours sleep in 3 days......


If I understand your original post.......

Your first deep had 7 out of 10 frames filled and you added a second deep. You want to put a queen excluder over that and then add your honey supers.

That would be fine. However, I think you would still want to watch the colony to make sure that they have enough room for expansion after you put the honey supers on.

When your honey super has frames that are full and capped, you *can* remove just those frames, extract the honey and return the empty frames back to your honey super for the bees to rework. I have a beek mentor that has done this very thing, but I don't think I was clear in my earlier response. Again, I plead lack of sleep.

You just don't want to mix the honey frames up with brood frames. Of course, if you are only using deep frames for brood and medium or shallows for honey, you won't have this problem.

As for wintering with just 2 deeps, I am not certain, as it truly depends on the amount of honey that the bees have stored in the deeps (and how much frame space has been used for brood).

For winter the upper deep should be full of honey, totaling at least 60 pounds of honey; more is better for cold winter areas.

BTW, I didn't mention it earlier, but we have not used the tar paper wraps for our hives, as one of my mentors thought they caused too much condensation inside the hive. Although some of my reading says that the tar paper helps block the wind and absorbs the warmth of the sun better. We focused on the windbreak instead, as the wind is wicked from the n/nw on our property.

Anyway, I hope this better answers your questions.

 

[keljonma]

mandie - soon you should be able to check to see what the queen situation is in the hive. I hope all is well in bee land for you and your son. Please keep us posted.

 

[valmom]

Thank you, Keljonma! I understand the lack of sleep and feeling incoherent thing I feel like I need a lot of hand holding in this adventure and I just want to run things by a more experienced person to see if there are flaws in my understanding. Thanks for the reply- it makes sense!

 

[keljonma]

Thank you, Keljonma! I understand the lack of sleep and feeling incoherent thing I feel like I need a lot of hand holding in this adventure and I just want to run things by a more experienced person to see if there are flaws in my understanding. Thanks for the reply- it makes sense!

All beeks hold hands, valmom.... we cover the earth (with apologies to Sherwin-Williams )

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

hey mandie, how's the hives?