The hive that was hit worst by the vandalism was Martha. She stayed exposed to the elements on her side for several hours with her frames spilled out. I hope that the queen made it through the ordeal or else enough brood survived that the nurse bees can create a new queen.

I wanted to move Martha out of the danger as soon as possible.

The Martha hive was furthest from the house. I went out tonight just as it got dark and moved her to a location closer to the house. Now I can see all three hives, Ethel, Connie and Martha (named after my aunts and my mother), from my deck.

The move did not go well. Martha weighs about 80 pounds. The parts of hives just set on top of each other and are not structurally attached. I lifted the hive and carried it 100 feet. It started slipping apart as I carried it and the bees were very very mad. I got it setting in the right place and I put a sugar feeder in it to help them recover a little. The bees were swarming all over the hive.

I had just set the bee veil on and did not tie it down. There were even bees inside the veil, but I never got stung.

There were lots of bees still swarming around the old hive site and I feel bad that they will be separated from the hive, unless they get lucky and find their way back. It is raining now so I think that a few hundred bees will not make it to the new location. A bee colony, though is not made up of individuals. It’s like a human that has a wound; it can heal. The individual bees are merely cells of the main creature. The creature is the hive.

I know I did some damage by moving it, but it is better than leaving her where she was and letting stupid kids attack her with rocks and sticks until all of the insides are exposed to the weather.

I came home today and found my hives knocked over and the bees were exposed to the elements all day. I don’t know if the queens survived. I put the hives back together as best I could.

Kids, I guess, brought up to be stupid and thoughtless by stupid and thoughtless parents thought it would be fun to kill my bees.

That’s the trouble in trying to do something in the suburbs. You are surrounded by people who have lost what little culture they ever had. They have no feel for the land or appreciation for the small creatures that live there. They think in terms of chemical green lawns and inflated property values.

I had a swarm, I think. I found the Ethel hive in the condition show below. (click on image to get large size.) I went back to the house to set up a nuc box with frames and bee pheromone to try and capture the hive if it took off. When I came back the hive seemed quiet, but active. Not as active as it had been, but it was working. The bait nuc did not catch anything and there was no sign in the neighborhood of a swarm. I was gone only about 15 minutes.

Now I don’t know if I lost the swarm or if it was a swarm. It might have been a mating flight by a new queen. Perhaps the old queen died.

I waited until later the day, just before dark and opened up the hive.

The hive is one deep body, a medium super, a queen excluder and another medium super.

I did not want to go down into the hive body for fear of killing a new queen. I just pulled off the top super, which has no comb, but there are lots of bees in it. The top of the queen exluder was covered by hundreds of young bees. The middle of the super was clogged by fresh comb. I lifted the corner and the medium (pierco) frames were all drawn out with comb and had lots of honey. The population seemed very high, there were lots of bees.

I am not sure what happened, but it looks like the hive is still good and strong.

I checked the bees this morning. It rained all night and at first I wondered where all the bees were. I could see them milling about just inside the entrance. It was foggy and I guess that they didn’t want to come out.

Last week I put the supers on Connie and Ethel.

Connie has graceful arcs of comb on the top part of the pierco frames in the center of the super. This is good. There are clusters of bees working these. After less than a week they have started moving up to the top.

Ethel shows no activity in the super. There are dozens of random bees walking about on the supers, but no comb. I can see down through the frames and there are lots of bees on the top of the deep hive frames, but I don’t know why they are not coming up.

Martha, the nuc I got last week, is now 8 days on the site and looks happy from the outside, but I did not open her up. On sunny days (precious few) during the week I saw the workers returning with large clumps of pollen so I just have to assume that all is going well.

I am worried about Ethel. When the sun is shining the bees are wandering all over the front of the hive and swirling around as though angry. I am afraid for the queen. It could be that they are not queenright, which would account for the lack of comb in the super. I saw workers with pollen returning to the hive which is supposed to be a good thing. The behavior of the hive, from what I read, indicates the queen is dead and they may be making another. I will wait and see.

This bee thing is stressful.

G. Gordon Samson’s delightful book, written in 1892 can be found at several places on the internet. I downloaded it, cleaned it up somewhat and deleted the advertising off the end of the file.

This is the 1921 edition. There are parts of it which are dated, but most of it is surprisingly useful as raising bees has not really changed very much in the last 100 years.

The book is warmly told in first person and you get a feel for the generous and friendly nature of the author. It was a real pleasure reading this book.

All of us can learn from Mr. Samson’s Experience.  I found that the book answered many questions that I had that the newer books seemed to have missed.

Download the Adobe PDF file  Bees for Pleasure and Profit, but G. Gordon Samson and enjoy!

I kept getting advice from other beekeepers that I should be adding supers. When I ordered bees I bought three basic hives, which are a deep hive body, and inner cover, a lid, and a base. I’ve had my first two nucs since April 16. I’ve fed them 50/50 sugar water everyday, but we’ve only had 5 or so days of decent weather. I opened both the Connie and the Ethel hives after 10 days and Connie was doing better, but both had drawn comb on three of the new frames.

Yesterday my case of Pierco frames arrived (after two weeks). I painted five medium supers over the weekend, but I decided to only add one super to Connie and Ethel. My new hive, Martha, is still recovering from the trip down and needs to rest and get established before I start opening her up.

I filled a spray gun with sugar syrup and sprayed the frames. The frames are coated with beeswax, but I have heard that some hives don’t like them. Spraying the frames with sugar is supposed to make them more attractive to the workers and as they eat up the sugar they get used to them and will more readily draw comb.

I put on my bee hat and gloves and smoked Connie. I pulled a few frames and discovered that all the frames were drawn out and there was comb on the bottom of the top feeder. I added the super just in time to prevent a swarm. The supers were a little warped so there is a 1/16 inch gap that the bees did not seem to like. I took off the top feeder and I put on the inner lid and the telescoping top. I have a queen excluder, but I did not use it, yet. The bottom deep and the medium super are for the queen and I won’t harvest them for honey. When I add more supers I will put in the queen excluder. I hope to leave the deep and two supers for overwintering, but if there is any honey this summer I would like to harvest it and have something to show for all this time and expense.

I smoked Ethel and when I opened her up she had two frames without any comb. There were lots of bees, but I did not start pulling the frames. I did not inspect for brood. The one frame that I pulled seemed to have the high white caps which indicates brood, but the hive seemed upset and I wanted to get out quickly. I am wondering if the queen is OK. There is little I can do if she is not. I don’t want to order a queen just yet, that’s why I have three hives. I will let nature take its course for now. This hive takes the most sugar, so I wonder where it is going. The bottom of the plastic top feeder had a large build up of comb and the spaces where the bees climb up into the feeder had comb. Ethel never used the top feeder, just the front feeder. I pulled the top feeder off and had trouble getting the bees to exit the nooks and crannies. I went back and got the bee brush and carefully brushed most of them out onto the front stoop, and I left the feeder leaning against the hive. When I can back they had abandoned the feeder. I put the super and lids on Ethel.

If there is a problem with Ethel and the hive dies, I will wait until this summer and perhaps split Connie and get a new queen. Otherwise I will wait until spring and do the split then and late the bees make their own queen.

I now have two LARGE front feeders that I can fill with two quarts of sugar water each. I only filled each half full and when I came back there was a feeding frenzy going on in both hives. The medium feeder is on the new Martha hive and was about half empty last night. I will fill it today when I get home. I think I like the medium feeders better as they are easier to work with, even if I have to fill them every day.

At around 7:30pm last night, it was about 60 degrees and the wind had died down. I saw that there were lots of bees returning to all three hives with baskets full of pollen. I think this is a good sign. The new hive naturally has fewer workers, partly because I closed up the nuc while the force was still out gathering. I am hoping that the new brood keeps on hatching and that they turn the sugar into comb so that the population jumps up as fast as the Connie hive.

I picked up my third nuc from Hive Depot in Rhode Island. Erica and I drove up Cumberland Saturday morning. Erica printed out the list of garage sales so that we could wander about if we wanted to.

We got to the Paul’s house about noon, but no one was home. The back yard had several nucs scattered about the back yard plus three hives, each with several supers. I opened the nucs, and they all looked pretty good, but there was one nuc of Italians that seemed to have more bees than the other. This was the “strong” colony that Paul was talking about.

We rode around, looking at a surprisingly bad bunch of garage sales for about an hour, and we each had a slice of Rhode Island pizza for lunch. It was good, but coming from New York, not what I would call real pizza. When we got back to Paul’s house, he was there and I bought the nuc. I was concerned because he had the nuc open and, although it had been raining lightly off and on, there were a lot of bees out and about hunting nectar. I had to abandon them, and the nuc would be a little light as a result. I was tempted to buy one of the weaker nucs. If Paul could have sold me the wood, I would have bought one, but he had no spare hive boxes.

When I got home I put on the bee veil and gloves and opened the nuc. Boy, were they mad! Bees don’t like being in the back of bouncing truck for three and half hours. I transferred the frames to the Martha hive and set the nuc on its side near the hive entrance. When I came back in an hour, there was a lump of bees in the bottom of the nuc. The queen must have fallen out when I transferred the frames to the hive. I dumped them onto the top of the frames and they seemed all right after that.

On Sunday, there was some good weather, sunny and in the high mid 60s. The hive was doing well and there were even some girls returning with pollen to the hive. They were drinking the sugar from the front feeder, but I did not see any of them using the top feeder.

Today my medium frames arrive so I can start putting the supers on the hives. UPS showed them leaving Secaucus, NJ over the weekend so I guess the truck will drop them off this morning.

While checking my bees on Sunday, one of the girls from the Ethel hive landed in my hair and got tangled. I tried to comb it out with my fingers and the poor thing stung me in the soft flesh between the fingers. My hand swelled up a bit and itches. It didn’t hurt that much, but it itches more than any mosquito bite I’ve ever had. My middle finger on the right hand is stiff so it is hard to type. That was only my second sting in a month of beekeeping, but both bees were from the Ethel hive.

Betterbee called a little while back to tell me that my Bee Package was delayed yet again so I canceled the order. I was under the impression that the $5 cancellation fee was waived because they were so late. I was mistaken. The end of May is too late to install a bee package as the Month of May around here is prime bee time.

I called Paul Simoes up in Rhode Island. He was coming in with a truck of Nucs on May 4. I couldn’t make it on Monday, but I asked him to hold one for me for Saturday. He says I can pick it up around noon. It’s a four hour ride, but I’m going to get my nuc for the last hive.

My other hives are doing so well that I am concerned about swarming. They are in a single deep box and the last time I looked they were both packed full of comb. I just got word that Brushy Mountain finally shipped my frames and foundation last night, so I should have that by next Tuesday and I will put two medium supers on the April hives and that should (I hope) discourage swarming for a bit.

I need to find a cheaper source of wood. I would like to have a spare hive. At Brushy Mountain I am paying 50% over the catalog price for shipping. I don’t like it when companies try to make a profit by doubling the shipping costs the way that the bee companies do. The shipping price should be the actual cost plus a little for the box.

When I bought my supers from Bruce Morgan in Georgia, the shipping was reasonable. I wonder if he makes hive kits?

I’ve had my bees now for 21 days. The brood emerging now was from eggs that the queen produced on the day that I received the nucs.

I have been feeding the bees 50/50 sugar and water in the top feeders and a front feeder. My Connie hive takes as much as a quart a day from the top feeder. My Ethel hive doesn’t seem to use the top feeder, but takes about 3/4 quart a day from the front feeder.

On good days the workers have been returning from the field so laden with pollen that they could hardly fly. Everything was blooming last week. On several days it hit 90 degrees and the bees seemed to be very very active.

For the last week, however, it has been rainy and cold. The temperature goes up to the mid 50s during the days and on a few nights it has gone down into the upper 30s. Tomorrow it will be a warmer day with scattered showers. The temperature will be in the high 60s and I hope that the rain will hold off for at least part of the day. Saturday looks better and starting next Monday there should be good spring/summer weather.

I am worried about the new brood. They need protein as well as sugar. I hope that the workers found enough pollen. I bought pollen patties to feed the bees, but I have not opened up the hives much so I have not put them in. I am not sure where to put them, anyway.

I think that the colonies are healthy, at least they bees are very busy doing their bee things. I did not search for the queen or check for brood on the ten day inspection. I did not want to bother them. I think that this weekend I might do an inspection. I hope that the queens are OK and producing brood.

I will not receive the medium frames this week. Brushy Mountain is still two to three weeks behind in shipping. As soon as I get the frames I will pill up the supers and hope that the hives start making lots of honey. I want the sun to shine and my bees to be happy.

Betterbee called to say that the bee package would be delayed again. This time pickup is on a Friday and I can’t take off from work to pick up bees. I am a consultant and I don’t get vacation days or any paid leave. If I don’t work it costs me several hundred dollars in lost income. I had to cancel.

The bee supplier who sold me my nucs is receiving another shipment on May 4, 2009. It is a 3-1/2 hour ride from Rockland County, NY to Rhode Island, but I may decide to do it next Saturday. He says that he will have a good supply of nucs and that he can hold several for me until next weekend. I might get Russians instead of Hygienic Italians, he has both. I only have the one extra hive so I can’t get more than that. I’ve been ordering some woodware from BrushyMountainBeeFarms.com, but they are about two weeks behind on shipping.

It would be nice to ride up on Saturday – it’s going to rain anyway, so they day is shot as far as any other projects. I would like a third hive. I would like to find someone that needs an $85 nuc and is willing to chip in $20 for gas (or do the driving and let me chip in $20 for gas).