Keeping bees

We are forecast for 32F in a few days as well. Probably the same front coming down from Canada. Pfffft. The good news is Winter will soon be a memory; The bees will be fine.

Yea sure I already lost one hive cause the stupid weather was abnormal...so yup I am sooo worried about this one. But they seem to be eating and are in the hive... so crossing my fingers.

camprn - When you say 2 spare queens, are you planning on 2 splits right away?

NHGardener wrote:camprn - When you say 2 spare queens, are you planning on 2 splits right away?

We ordered the spare queens in the event any of the package queens had failed during the trip from Georgia.
If all is right with the packages, in the next few days I will make splits out at the farm apiary that I have taken over. I am installing the package I have at the farm today. The farmer is getting nervous because there is only one hive there now and he needs at least six, but preferably 10 hives. There are some nucs and other packages coming in a week or so, depending upon the weather. The plants will begin blooming in a few weeks.

Wow - you've taken over a farm apiary! What an experience!

I don't know why the bees are so late in coming this year. Was it cooler weather down south? I sure hope my queen is okay when she gets here.

I think we all need to be making splits, when possible. And growing as many queens as possible.

I'd love to be a bee farmer. But first I have to get one successful hive going...

camprn wrote:BEEEEEZZZZZZZZ...
in the kitchen because it's raining like crazy outside.

That's amazing. The queens up top. Is that how they are shipped?

The little boxes atop the cage are queen boxes, each contain a queen and a few attendants. There is another queen cage inside the bee cage which has about 3# or about 9000 bees. That queen, she will go in the hive with all those worker/drone bees.

I installed a package today. It is such a breath of fresh air to see life at the beehives again. My other hive is barely alive, but I'll let it play out and see what happens.

Since I only got the one package, I'm really anxious to get a split going. I'll have to look that up on youtube to get all the details and see if I can do it (later on, of course, this queen isn't even out of her cage yet).

I think I'm getting an addiction to bees.

There were like 5 or 6 attendants in the bee cage, and 2 beautiful white combs in the package, never saw that before.

are you feeding the weak hive?

The weak one has had all sorts of feed available since February - sugar patties and pollen patties, plus honey frames. They really didn't use much of it. I went in there the other day and saw the queen and about 3 sq. inches of larvae and brood. She must be a weak queen, is all I can think, maybe she got chilled this winter, don't know. I combined it the other day with the really really weak hive that had about 50 bees and the queen had fallen out when I had checked it the last time, not that it mattered because there was nothing going on in there anyway.

But - hey - there was larvae! So maybe!

Watch those eggs carefully it could be the result of an egg laying worker if there is no queen present they cells will be capped perhaps and will turn into drones .

Strangely enough in several of the scientific books I've read it has been claimed that very very occasionally some such worker laid eggs have indeed been turned into viable queens by the queen less hive several weeks after the queen was removed & egg production was zero for several days till a worker started laying .

Apparently once these worker queen cells were capped the hive went over to honey production pollen collecting & making bee bread whilst awaiting the arrival of their virgin birth queen . The hive then resumed the life of a normal hive again .


It could al be a hoax or that mother nature is indeed far stranger and more capable than most of us ever thought she was / is .

Horrifying!

Camp I'm confused ..... the title say bees and corn yet I saw no corn with cobs and pollen tassels , it looks far too early for it to be in flower when you look at eh barren trees and dead dry winter grasses .

What I felt I did see was what looked like willow catkins with pollen on them .. I know that they are one of the more early plants to produce pollen at the start of the bee year . Were these almonds or some other useful food crop?

Those dying bees looked as though they'd been hit with some gaseous / fine mist pesticide spray fairly early on in the day .

Did I read it right or will you be so kind and explain it all to me plese?

Plantoid, this is what the caption under the video reads (on youtube):

"While farmers seeds Neonicotinoid corn out in their fields. A bee keeper witnesses the profound effects within the hive."

I guess the seeds alone are causing this? Dunno.

It's the insecticide in the planting dust Plantoid, this isn't Bt corn... watch the video again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonicotinoid

It is because as they plant the corn that is dusted with the neonicotiniod and the breeze carried it to the willow. Since this is the main plant the bees are working right now it is a death sentence.

Here's the linked news report about the situation - "There's enough toxic material on just one kernal of corn to kill tens of thousands of honey bees" - and like CindiLou said, it comes up in dust form when planting. (Looks like Bayer denies that tho - they'll have to study it more)

http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nightly-news/47379683#47379683

Ahah eureeka moment???

Perhaps the nicotinoid treated corn seeds aluded to in the clip are within three or four miles radius of the massive numbers of hives in those apairies have been sown & then pre emergence pest sprayed or weed killed & it's that which has wacked the bees .

Ok put this above on hold Isee what your saying .. I understood that the nicotinoid treatment was put on at the seed merchants as a powder because of the precise doseage , I didn't realize that it was being dusted as it was put in the seed drill hopper or maybe was so dusty with it that it issued dust clouds on transfer from storage container to the seed drill hopper .

Any idea if the nicotinoid was put on the seed via a mist spray as it left the seed ploughing in tube of the of the seed drill ie a wet treatment almost direct on the ground a fraction of a second before the seed gets covered ?


Over here our bulk wheat seeds are powder or spray pretreated with all sorts of things at the seed merchants .
They usually come in double skin woven poly prop white one tonne bags 3 foot by 3 foot by 3 foot and have a secure tied up nine inch wide sleeve to discharge the contents into the seed drill hopper.
All my apairies were surrounded by all sorts of sown crops & I never lost a hive as a result of spraying or sowing as far as I know. Yes that was before the advent of the nicotinoid treatments for sowing but there were all sort of unfriendly to bees chemicals being sprayed on the fields .

My local farmers use to give me at least a days warning so I could shut the hives up and keep the bees inside the hive till the danger period passed .

Just read the wikki link thanks for putting it up.

I found this bit in the link about the sticky coating problem.... very revealing as well as the air blown seed distribution method ..that's crazy for a pesticide dust that's stuck to seeds & not sealed in with another coat of sealant ... that does make for a very hazardous event for the bees .
I wonder how the blame wll be apportioned ???


Environmental impacts [edit]

In 2008, Germany revoked the registration of clothianidin for use on seed corn after an incident that resulted in the death of millions of nearby honey bees.[23] Investigation of the incident revealed that it was caused by a combination of factors:
failure to use a polymer seed coating known as a "sticker";
weather conditions that resulted in late planting when nearby canola crops were in bloom;
a particular type of air-driven equipment used to sow the seeds which apparently blew clothianidin-laden dust off the seeds and into the air as the seeds were ejected from the machine into the ground;
dry and windy conditions at the time of planting that blew the dust into the nearby canola fields where honey bees were foraging;[24]
and a higher application rate which had been authorized for a severe root worm infestation.

Clothianidin was also restricted for a short period for use on rapeseed; however, after evidence had shown that the problems resulting from maize seed were not transferable to rapeseed, its use was reinstated under the condition that the pesticide be fixed to the rapeseed grains by means of an additional sticker, so that abrasion dusts would not be released into the air.[25][26]

In 2009, the German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety decided to continue to suspend authorization for the use of clothianidin on corn. It had not yet been fully clarified to what extent and in what manner, bees come into contact with the active substances in the pesticides belonging to the neonicotinoid group (clothianidin, thiamethoxam and imidacloprid) when used on corn. In addition, on the basis of new findings, the question arose as to whether drops of liquid from plants, which are taken in by bees, pose an additional risk.[27]

Neonicotinoid seed treatment uses are banned in Italy, but foliar uses are allowed. This action was taken based on preliminary monitoring studies showing that bee losses were correlated with the application of seeds treated with these compounds; Italy also based its decision on the known acute toxicity of these compounds to pollinators.[28][29]

Sunflower and corn seed treatments of the active ingredient imidacloprid are suspended in France; other imidacloprid seed treatments, such as for sugar beets and cereals, are allowed, as are foliar uses

The overwintered hive is strong! It's the tall one with 4 deeps. The top deep is there for the bees to clean out the honey as it was on a dead hive that was broken into by a bear a few weeks ago.


I split it today making 3 hives. While I had the hive broken down I looked but couldn't find the queen. We will know in a week or so which hive she is in, then I can actually find her and isolate her for a brief brood break to stay ahead of the varroa mites. I really should invest in a queen marking kit.
The stack with the blue honey supers at the bottom are all empty waiting to be used.

I really should clean my lens before I shoot photos.

I have baby bees!

Today was the 4 week point. So I opened it up and looked at every frame! I WILL NOT USE A TOP FEEDER AGAIN! Well not without a queen excluder! She was making babies up in the draw!



I have 6 frames in the super with comb, 5 have brood.


I couldn't find the queen! I looked and looked! Then after I had cleaned the comb from the feeder (after carefully trying to get all bees back in the supper) my hubby spotted her on the side of the super!



I carefully used my tool as a ramp and she climbed up on my hand! I removed a couple of frames, put her in the super on top of the bottom frames, then carefully moved the frames in. Now to cross my fingers! What the heck else can happen with my hives!



I added another super and left the feeder out. Do you think I should keep it in or have hubby make me a frame and feed sugar? They have been busy so I think they will make enough to eat?

Cindi, for feeding sugar syrup, I place the inner cover on top of the hive then two strips of wood on either side of the hand hole, then place inverted canning jars full of syrup on the strips. The strips are 1/4 inch wide this allows for a little more than bee space. Then an empty box and the outer cover atop that. I have never had them build burr comb above the inner cover

Do you put holes in the canning lids, if so how big? I really feel like they still need to eat. They drank a gallon in a little less than two weeks so maybe not?

CindiLou, I'm trying to figure out why there is so much space under your hive top feeder. The comb seems to be piled high underneath so I'm thinking it is resting too far above the frames below. Is it supposed to sit right on the frames?

Your photo made me look at my own setup for my hive top feeder from Brushy Mountain - I put it on the new hive I installed yesterday, and wouldn't you know, I think I put it on wrong - I think I put the inner cover, then the hive top feeder on top of that, then the outer cover, when actually I see from the video the hive top feeder is supposed to rest on the frames below, then the inner cover and then cover. So I'm glad you posted that photo because I'll check it tomorrow and switch it around if I have to. Give me a good excuse to be nosy in there.

Wow, what a close call about your queen. Thank goodness hubs saw the queen.

I believe in my neck of the woods we keep the feeders on till July 4 - is that right camprn?

Ooh camprn, you made 3 hives from one? Did you use those 2 extra queens you got?

How did you know you had enough bees to split it into 2 more?

And what did you put in each new split, as far as ratio of maybe brood to nurses, or what, and did you keep the queen caged and put the cage in there?

I'm getting a Russian queen sometime late June/early July and I really am hoping my new hive will be strong enough by then to split! Should be.