Archive for September, 2009

More on the Ethel hive

Friday, September 25th, 2009

Last time I wrote that I was putting in a bee escape in the Ethel hive. I have been concerned about Ethel’s viability. (I put the escape in correctly with the diamond side down.)

I just don’t know what to think anymore.

The Bee escape was a bust. I went back a few days later and took out the escape. The top super, still full of honey, was still full of bees. The escape was clogged with dead bees. There is obviously something wrong inside of Ethel.

The top super is still chock full of bees. I took out the queen excluder. Every time I take the lid off, the area above the top board has many actively moving bees. I can see down through the hole that the top super has lots of active bees.

Very little activity happens at the entrance. I have an entrance reducer set to the wide feeder slot so that bees can defend the entrance better. For a while I saw bees dragging out yellow jackets in a life and death struggle, but there is close to zero activity at the entrance now.

I have a yellow jacket trap near the hive. I was worried that it would kill bees as well, but it quickly filled with yellow jackets and no bees. There are no yellow jackets around at all now. If you get a yellow jacket trap, get the $10 or $15 one. The cheap $5 one did nothing.

It has been well over two months since I noticed that Ethel was slowing down. She was once the most active hive and the only one to move up to more than one super. I am suspicious that she was a victim of her own success. I fed the hives when the it was raining almost every day and I think that Ethel put away too much honey, becoming “honey bound”. What happens is that all the comb has honey and there is no room for the queen to lay eggs for brood. A couple of months later the population starts to drop very fast.

I was watching just now and I saw a worker bee loaded with pollen enter the hive. That is supposed to be a sign that the colony is viable. I saw a queen cell surrounded by bees when I put in the bee escape, and it seemed empty when I took out the bee escape. Could it be that the hive is still working?

It is nearly October. There is less than a month for the bees to gather pollen and get ready for winter. I don’t know how their population changes at this time of year. I read that the brood from October is a different kind of worker that is able to make it through the whole winter. The weather here has started to cool, maybe the queen will be laying eggs for workers that will overwinter. If this is true then maybe Ethel will have a chance.

I am thinking about an October feeding, which is supposed to be thick sugar, possibly with some medicine in it so that the hives will make medicated honey for the winter. I am not enthusiastic about putting medicine in the sugar, and I will have to ponder this.

Update on Ethel (Is she alive?)

Monday, September 7th, 2009

Since the Ethel hive does not seem to be viable I decided to get the honey.

Since there are still a bunch of bees in her, I went out with a bee escape. This is one of those double triangle ones that create a one way maze. I took out the top super that was empty and lifted the super with the honey. When I took off the queen excluder there were a bunch of bees clumped around a queen cell right at the top of the frames. I put the bee escape on and put the honey super on top of that.

I don’t have high hopes for the hive living even if the queen survives. I will go out in an hour or so to see how the bee escape worked (I am worried that it is on upside down).

The three hives

Sunday, September 6th, 2009

I have decided that the queen in the Ethel hive died a month or so ago. The bee population is dropping fast and there is no activity of workers bringing back pollen, in fact no activity at all. I will try to get the honey out soon. There is no sense trying to save it this close to the end of the season. I will buy a package for this box and any hive that doesn’t make it through the winter.

Connie went nuts about the time I took these videos. I made the mistake of wearing a black t-shirt and was stung four times in the back and shoulder. I went back later with a white shirt and found what looks like a dead queen. I think that Connie re-queened. The swirling bees might have been the mating dance. She is happy now and there are lots of workers bringing back pollen, so I am hoping she is OK.

Martha, the hive that was trashed by kids is going strong. There are lots of bees coming back in so heavy with pollen that they can hardly fly.

The wildflowers are strong, especially goldenrod and ragweed and I understand that the bees like these. I saw queen anne’s lace and lots of fall perennials with bees on them so I hope that they will fill the deeps with honey.

Around the end of september I will start to feed them. I found that by removing the bee guards from the top feeders and pouring in 5 lbs of sugar that bees go crazy over it. I moistened the sugar, but not enough to make it liquid. I understand that you have to be careful in the fall not to make the bees think that there is a nectar flow or they will increase and swarm. The wet sugar keeps this from happening.

Ethel

Connie

Martha