Keeping bees

Cindi, how ya doin'?

I LOVE THAT!

Well, bees are alive. I put my ear to the boxes and hear the humming...kinda sounds like a bunch of flies.

Cleaned the 12" of heavy wet snow off them.
A couple of dead bees on each porch.
But they didn't decide to go back to California! I really wouldn't blame them

Bee sting no longer hard and red. Healing just like usual.


I was gonna look this weekend....but have to wait. Supposed to have a chance of rain thru Monday night. So i am going to resist temtation!

Only lost electricity for a few min earlier in the day...well more of a flicker..
Just a few limbs down at my house. Our girls house had a limb come down on the electrical wire. Energy company came and got it of. No lights out lol...that was a relief! In 2007 an ice storm tore the electrical out of that house and it cost us a grand to get it back up! After two weeks.. About 400 still with no electric in my county. So all in all wasn't so bad.

Hubby says "one of the few kinds of farming where you don't have to own a tractor"

Wow CindiLou, so sorry to hear about that snow. I'm hoping none of that is coming our way on the east coast.

Farming w/o a tractor - that's great!

I don't know why they can't come up with a transparent hive system so we don't have to keep disturbing them to find out what's going on in there! Observation hives are transparent, so surely it's not impossible. If anyone wants to get rich, there's your idea.

OR - tiny cameras in the hive. DRONES!!! This could be big. Very big.

The sun light will kill the eggs and the glasshouse heating effect will cause the wax to go into melt down .

I have visited a honey farm where the owners had all sorts of hives from around the world inside a big windowlwss wooden insulated shed .
The exits /enterances to the hives were 3 inch pipes out through the walls .

Because of the darkness in the room we viewed a glass sided set up of a working commercial USA style hive under red light .

T'was a very interesting afternoon as it was only 9 miles from where I had my home hives .

Ooh, now that's another idea - a bee shed with transparent hives, lit by red light when you want to take a look. It would also be beneficial in temperature control.

I didn't know that sunlight kills eggs?

You still needed a bee suit for some of the hive types they had in the shed .. the main thing was that being indoors the hives could be looked into in any weather . Part of the shed was sealed off, accessible from the changing room or the outside & wasused as a cafe selling all sorts of home made bee products and home made cakes sweetened with honey + tea coffee and soda pops etc.

Interesting. Great business idea, sell your bee products right there and folks can watch the bees too, maybe behind a window.

Lots of interesting business ideas today for someone.

Well, crap...stupid snow storm. Lost one of my hives. Opened it up because of no activity. A clump of dead bees. Maybe a few that were almost dead. darn it...

They were making comb UNDER the frames?

camprn wrote:

I have to tease you a little ---think I'd move that arrow inside the yellow, and if the chart said llama owners instead of beekeepers the arrow would be in the yellow too.


CindiL--so sorry about the snow and bee loss. It's not fair.
As we know, agriculture related things are unpredictable. Would be really something if we had complete control..

This bee loss you are seeing is normal. Right now your hive is loosing bees more rapidly than the queen can lay eggs, but if all is well within, her numbers are picking up pretty quickly.

No, Camprn, the whole hive is dead. I have opened it up to dead bees. All just laying in a clump. Not a bee moving.

We had 12" of snow when the last recorded snow was a trace in 2005 and the record snow was 1.3" in 1907. Temps were right at freezing and the poor confused hive didn't make it.

The other hive is alive and well. Working like crazy.

Oh jeeze, I thought I read you hade a few bees in the snow in front of the hive. Well that just stinks.

Chaos is working overtime! Tomorrow is dated for my first full inspection. I can't wait to see how they are doing!

Incoming..two different pollens in this pic!



If I wait till late June, could I take a few brood frames out and see if I can get a second hive going?

Hmm. So Cindi, do you think your bees didn't cluster? I'm trying to figure why they died, when it's not uncommon for us to get that much snow. Maybe they weren't oriented enough to form a cluster, or maybe they did form a cluster and weren't able to get to their 1:1 syrup, too cold to break out, and they starved?

One of your new hives died but the other didn't?

I have no idea what was going on.
They clustered, down at the bottom of three outside frames.
It was wet and cold snow. and windy. I think they just didn't adjust with only the 4 days in the hive. But this was the stupid hive! Some of them went UNDER the wire screen to start with. Not that many but I really think this package was really confused from the start.
I will take pictures tomorrow when I get the hive out of there for clean up. Was just a quick look yesterday.
May be able to this afternoon. But depends on if I feel better lol..

Yes, the other hive is doing awesome!

Hmm. Just wondering because sometimes when we get bees it can rain for days and they can't come out. Anyone have any ideas on this? I guess they just must have gotten too chilled and couldn't get into a warm cluster so soon. Either that or they just couldn't reach the feed. Still perplexed. Everyone's situation is a learning experience for me.

CindiLou wrote:No, Camprn, the whole hive is dead. I have opened it up to dead bees. All just laying in a clump. Not a bee moving.

We had 12" of snow when the last recorded snow was a trace in 2005 and the record snow was 1.3" in 1907. Temps were right at freezing and the poor confused hive didn't make it.

The other hive is alive and well. Working like crazy.

Unfortunately the most dangerous time for a bee colony is just before spring breaks and a real flow begins. Sometimes they'll get a few early days with a little nectar coming in - and if there's little reserve - this makes things even worse, because it stimulates the queen to start laying. They they have brood to cover, warm, and feed.

It's important for a beekeeper to make absolute certain that they have at least one frame of SEALED honey at all times. If the cells are uncapped nectar, it doesn't count; it can be used up in a day.

If the weather turns cold right after a package is installed, they must have feed where they can reach it. Syrup at an entrance feeder won't work; it's too cold for bees to leave the cluster and go to the entrance.

The best way to feed a colony that is totally out of feed (and you don't have any frames of honey that you can stick in) is with sugar or candied sugar right above the cluster.

The simplest way is to make a feeder rim, a 16x20 rim that is 1 1/2 to 2 inches in depth. I recommend that you lay an excluder down first, to keep the bees from filling this with burr comb that gets full of drone brood if the weather turns suddenly favorable.

Lay down about 3-4 sheets of newspaper inside the feeder rim, and pour a 5# bag of sugar onto the newspaper. If the bees are really weak, dampen the newspaper, but a strong colony will put up lots of evaporation. The newspaper will get wet and the sugar will begin to soak through; then the bees will start to take it. Put some weights on the cover, because raccoons and possums can smell the sugar and sometimes will pull covers off to get at it.

They will make plenty of holes through it and will have a continuous supply of energy to hold them through the hard times. The sugar will turn into a hard block, so it won't fall through onto the bees.

As soon as the bees start getting real nectar, remove the sugar, if there is a surplus. You can put it into sealed buckets for the next emergency feeding.

There are some folks who say the bees should never get sugar - so what do they do, let them starve? The Scripture says a godly man has regard for his beasts.

Never, never feed store-bought honey to the bees. These are generally full of disease spores (the bee disease does not affect humans), and some of these may be the worst kind of antibiotic-resistant disease. Keep in mind that a frame of honey from a diseased hive has billions of spores, so if this honey is extracted and mixed into a 10,000 gallon tank, the entire tank is now contaminated with the spores.

If you already have bees, and you have a strong disease-free hive that has extra frames of honey, you can take one of these, and put it right next to the cluster on your starving one.

Be cautious of using honey from hives that have died over winter, leaving frames of honey unusued. They may have died of disease, or they may have had stored pesticide-contaminated pollen that killed them when they could not dilute it with fresh pollen. Establish why the hive died, before risking using this honey for feed.

They are alive!
Don't know how many or what shape but they are going in and out and cleaning out the dead ones!
Tomorrow I will go in and see what is going on.

Went out this afternoon and found this....



Thank you for the info, Pollinator. Printing it off and putting in my folder.
I had a top feeder on it. Had no idea what else to do. They had only been in the hive 4 days. This is my hive we named Confused because they are all over the place lol..
Maybe my confusion was passed to them lol..but the first hive has been like a dream from the start.

Cindi Lou is that your queen on the front of the landing board almost dead centre ready to go out on a mating trip ???

Sometimes , when bees are hanging out side the hive in a big fist sized cluster , if you have time during the warmer times of the day , in good weather and you sit near the hive , you'll be able to observe the newly mated queen coming back with about 20 bees in attendance and the rest of the hive will go back inside with her . She will usually have several male appendages attached to her rear end .. the drones die .

Wow - that would be so neat to see a queen come back from her mating flight! I can't imagine.

Also, it was a really good point about not giving them honey frames from a dead hive. I was going to give my new package coming up a head start by starting them right in the hive that has about 10 bees left from overwinter. But I keep getting this nagging feeling that the bees got into something around here - uncapped chainsaw gasoline or some other contaminant - because neither hive survived the winter very well, even tho their non-laying queens survived.

NHGardener wrote:Wow - that would be so neat to see a queen come back from her mating flight! I can't imagine.

Also, it was a really good point about not giving them honey frames from a dead hive. I was going to give my new package coming up a head start by starting them right in the hive that has about 10 bees left from overwinter. But I keep getting this nagging feeling that the bees got into something around here - uncapped chainsaw gasoline or some other contaminant - because neither hive survived the winter very well, even tho their non-laying queens survived.

Time to do a post mortem on the dead hives to find the reason they died.

1. If they died in pretty much of a cluster, with lots of bees sticking their heads in the cells, and no honey left, or only honey that was separated from the cluster - they probably starved. The equipment can be used again for new bees.

2. Look for scale: If you find american foulbrood scale in any of the brood cells, be sure you don't use the equipment over. Scale also stinks with a unique smell that is different from the smell of dead bees.

That scale is very hard for the bees to clean out, and it's loaded with billions of AFB spores, so they'll be well contaminated during the effort. Burn all the frames of comb, and scorch out the insides of the boxes, bottom boards, covers, etc. Char all inside exposed wood thoroughly. Here's what scale looks like in empty equipment: http://pollinator.com/afbscale.htm

3. Look for varroa mite droppings. These are white specks found in the brood cells. If you see a lot of them, varroa is likely the cause of demise. You can use the equipment again, as the varroa dies with the bees, but you need better management to control varroa in the future.

4. Look for excessive pollen. Entire frames of unused pollen in the center of the brood nest are a sign that the bees may have stored contaminated pollen. During the last season, they took a pesticide hit that probably weakened the colony, but did not kill them, as they had fresh new pollen coming in. Sometimes they'll even put clean pollen over top of the contaminated and the hive seems to recover. But then, during winter, the contaminated pollen gets uncovered and the colony is killed.

You can test for contaminated pollen by putting one of these frames from the deadout into the middle of a brood nest in a healthy colony. Wait 2-3 days, then check the brood pattern on the frames on either side of the frame you inserted. If it looks like the queen is suddenly failing (spotty brood pattern), the bees have been feeding contaminated pollen to the brood and it is dying, so they have removed the deceased larvae. Remove the frame immediately and discard before it can kill more brood. Also discard any other frames from the deadout that had large areas of pollen. The rest of the frames can be used for packages of bees.

Contaminated pollen doesn't mean your hives were sprayed. It means the bees were working on flowers that were sprayed. It could have been a mosquito spray, nearby agricultural crops (cotton is notorious because it produces abundant nectar and bees will be in the cotton fields as soon as they bloom), or from yard-fogging neighbors, or neighbors that plaster their blooming gardens with Sevin.

All contaminated pollen results from violations of the label directions. Here is a flow chart that simplifies (for the pesticide applicator) the label directions concerning bees: http://pollinator.com/pesticides/flowchart.htm

CindiLou wrote:I have no idea what was going on.
They clustered, down at the bottom of three outside frames.
It was wet and cold snow. and windy. I think they just didn't adjust with only the 4 days in the hive. But this was the stupid hive! Some of them went UNDER the wire screen to start with. Not that many but I really think this package was really confused from the start.
I will take pictures tomorrow when I get the hive out of there for clean up. Was just a quick look yesterday.
May be able to this afternoon. But depends on if I feel better lol..

Yes, the other hive is doing awesome!

Makes me wonder if they were queenless, or if the queen was so poor that she didn't give off much queen scent, so the bees were confused and demoralized by this. Did you see a queen, and were the bees attending her? There should be a circle of bees around the queen most of the time.

I can usually spot a queenless hive instantly by the sound they make when you open the hive. It's an unnatural hum, kind of a mourning sound. And the bees act nervous and flighty. If they've been queenless for quite awhile, they'll usually also be mean.

This was a package that was installed on foundation..... Didn't you drop that queen cage Cindi?