Archive for February, 2011

End of February

Sunday, February 27th, 2011

Yesterday I turned Martha 90 degrees so she is facing South. I rocked her around. She is heavy. The girls did not like it, and a few came out and I was stung in the leg. I have arthritis in my hip and I hope it helps a little.

Martha was facing east. She is under a large silver maple and it is shady where she is. When I placed the hives, it was morning and I noticed that the spot had a clear shot at the eastern sky, so I thought that she would wake up early. It turns out that in the height of summer, the bushes to the north cut off the sun and the only light filters in from the south. Short of moving the hive, the best sunlight is to the south so I turned her 90 degrees.

She is unstable now. I have to shim the hive so she doesn’t rock around. I worry about her being knocked over. The kids will find the hives eventually and I want to keep them alive as long as possible.

I opened Connie and she was full of very active bees. They were consuming the pollen patty on the top bars. Martha was ignoring the pollen.

I opened one of the dead hives and I found a dead queen surrounded by bees. They may have starved to death. They had burrowed into the comb, but were surrounded by frames full of honey. I guess that they suffocated and there was not enough population to handle the winter cold.

I have to harvest the honey from the dead hives, but the honey won’t flow in this weather. I can’t bring the frames inside as they would make a sticky mess. I want to collect the frames that I can harvest and move them to the deck. I want to seal them up so insects and mice can’t rob the honey and when the weather warms up I will set up the honey spinner and collect it all.

 

Added Pollen Patties to hives

Sunday, February 13th, 2011

Martha and Connie are showing signs of waking up, in spite of there still being a foot of snow on the ground. The front of the hives have dead bees strewn around from the girls doing Spring cleaning.

Martha’s entrance reducer is being chewed on, either by skunks or opossums, or perhaps mice. So far they have not made a hole big enough for anything to get into the hive. I think anything rooting around would be stung anyway.

I went back and put a shim on the hives and a pollen patty. You don’t need the shim if you don’t mind the inner cover squooshing the patty down onto the top of the frames. I had them so I used them.

Now the girls have a source of protein in addition to the honey they’ve put away. I figure any pollen that they’ve capped is long gone. Also they tend to eat the stores near where they are balled around the queen and will not venture too far, unless it warms up. This week it will go well over 50F for several days, though, and I think they will wander around looking for something good to snack on.

As soon as the snow melts and it is consistently over 40F, I will start feeding. I want a large build-up for when the nectar starts flowing. The girls start bringing back pollen around the end of March, although for the life of me, I don’t see where they find it.

I want to turn Martha around 90 degrees. She is facing East right now. I wanted her to catch the morning sun, but the hives facing south seem to do best. I want to turn Martha south.

I will again consider splitting the two good hives. I will be moving hives about and I need to find room for the two Nucs that I’ve ordered.

I am asking on FreeCycle.org for cinder blocks. When I get enough, all the hives are going to be raised another foot to keep them out of the deep snow.  I want to make a porch roof over the entrances, like they have in Europeane hives. I have read that they do nothing, but it will keep the rain and snow off of the entrance.

I am considering buying the English garden hive covers. The copper tops look very cute on the hives, but they cost $50 each.

I saw a very neat plastic hive system by Omlet, but it costs $850 a hive. Traditional hives cost around $120, so I can’t see the Omlets taking off. If I was rich I would have them. They are built well for bees and are easy for beekeepers.

February inspection

Monday, February 7th, 2011

In spite of 18 inches of snow, the temperature went above 40F this weekend and I decided to find out for sure who has survived so far.

Ethel and Justine are definitely gone. I opened them both up and there is nothing but dead bees in them. There is lots of honey, much of it uncapped. The meaning of the uncapped honey is not clear to me. Otherwise, the hive looks OK. I will take out any frames with capped honey and spin them when the snow melts and it is easier to get back to the bees. There may be 100 pounds or more of honey in the two hives.

Based on the theory that the hives suffocated, I will reuse the hives and frames. My new bees will have a ready made hive with lots of comb and some uncapped honey to get started with.

I am going to order some honey buckets and sieves to make the extraction easier. I have been pouring the honey into cheesecloth and then squeezing it – all by hand. I want to try just letting it sit for a day or two and drain through the sieve. The honey bucket has a gate in the bottom for bottling from the bottom. This way there will be less wax in the bears.

Now, Martha and Connie have lots of dead bees outside the hives and a few live ones on their backs. I opened up Martha and took a peek in and saw a large clump of bees near the front. A bee started to come up out of the box so I put the cover back on quickly – and then bang! I was stung on the top of my head. That was the first sting since last July.

I noticed that there was lots of noise from the have – snap, crackle, and pop sounds. I put my ear next to the boxes and I they were fairly loud.

I went to Connie and listened and there was the same snap, crackle, and pop. Connie, too, was cleaning house and I saw live bees dragging dead bees out the entrance and dumping them. Connie, my strongest hive, is doing well.

My April packages will be Justine II and Ethel III. I want to get some cinder blocks and raise all my hives another foot above the ground.

I am also getting NUCS in May from the New Jersey bee farm. I will need boxes for these. A NUC is a small hive (about half the number of frames) that has lived through the winter so it should be strong. (I am not sure the nucs I am getting are “over-wintered”, though).

I think six hives is too much and I may sell one. I should be able to get $250 for a strong hive, maybe even more than that. An empty hive kit with two deeps and frames is about $100 plus $40 shipping. A package is $120. I would need to get about $260 to get my money back. I also would have done all the work and got the hive started so I should get about $100 for that part. I might advertise a complete hive for $350 in May and see if I get any offers.

I am going to order the pretty copper tops for my hives. They look very cool, but they cost $65 each, plus shipping. I’ll start with a pair, I think.