Apple and Cherry blooms

We are still having very wet weather. Somewhere between the rain my trees were able to bloom. The real quesiton is wether the bees were able to pollinate them. The rain knocks off the peddles, which make the flowers less attractive to the bees. Local orchards are worried that this incessant raining is going to greatly affect their pollination.

Apple Blossom

Cherry Blossom

You can see that some off the cherry blossom pedals are off of the flower. This is because of the heavy rains and some blooms are older than others.

Dandelion blooming right beside the new landing board & slotted rack.

I put on a 3rd box, by mixing some existing frames into the new box. I put in 4 brand new empty frames which I plan to remove to use as a nucleus hive in the future. I also used 9 frames from my 'dead' hives so that the bees can clean off some remaining honey.

3 Box hive

I am working out how to split the hives as cleanly as possible.

Blue Hive bearding... almost

The last two days have been nice and hot. My dad called me up and said that it looked like a lot of bees were trying to get into the hive. In actuality I still have my 1/2 entrance reducer on when the bees could probably be without it. So I removed it.

Lots of bees

It was also a nice day to clean up my old frames which were all dirty from the dead hives. The one hive was stuck in so they ended up pooping in the hive. I took the frames and scrapped them clean with my hive tool and then used soapy water and rinse water to clean them off. They now look as good as new!

Cleaned up frames

 On a separate note, the resident killdeers are back to their same nesting spot. Look how beautiful their eggs are! I did not touch them, what an awesome way to position them.

Killdeer eggs: Beautiful!

I also found a bumblebee nest. It is under my driveway. I will have to keep an eye on them.

Dandelion Fields Forever...

The dandelions are in full bloom. Unfortunately we are receiving record amounts of rain; so the bees cannot get out of the hives to collect the pollen and nectar. Who ever thought a field of dandelion would be so beautiful? A beekeeper of course.

Lots of local fields are experiencing a dandelion bloom

 I was able to find a couple of bees foraging on my lawn. The pollen also indicates that they are getting a lot from the dandelions.

Honey Bee on dandelion bloom

Hopefully we can get some nice weather and the bees can get out more!

Video: Louie Schwartzberg

I received this link from a friend of mine. It is a TED talk, and halfway through it features some snippets of Louie Schwartzberg movie:

Hidden Beauty: A Love Story That Feeds The Earth (Start @3:15)

Just amazing cinematography!

Excellent Weather

(This post was lost by Blogger, and was promised to be repaired. Apparently I am one one the 0.16% of people who lost my posts. This was originally posted on Thursday).Finally some spring time weather has arrived. We are out in the fields cultivating to prepare for planting.
I opened up my hives and inspected them and treated them against American Foulbrood disease with a premixed powder.

Low activity, no pollen coming in!

Why are there no eggs dropping?

The green hive is quite disappointing. I am frustrated with the bees and the queen. She is not laying yet and the bees are not taking in any pollen.

Lots of activity, pollen and nectar coming in.

The white hive is doing very well. I treated them with the premix AFB treatment and I also reversed the top super (heavy) with the bottom super(fairly light). The idea is that the bees will better fill the hive when doing so. Some beekeepers disagree with doing so. In between the frames the bees had laid some drone larvae. The bottom picture has a varroa mite circled.

Can you guys see the mite?

The blue hive is just buzzing with activity. I took out some frames to inspect and this is what I saw. So many bees. They too have a few drones buzzing around the hives.

Lots of bees on the frames. The queen has been busy laying!

To my surprise, I found some swarm cells at the bottom of the frames! This is not necessarily an indication that the bees are planning to swarm. There were no eggs in these cells. Crazy to see though.

Swarm cups on the bottom of the frame.

Let's hope that this post does not get erased and lost!

Queen spotting and hive reduction

Yesterday I checked out the hives at my place. Lots of pollen was coming in. I gave my strong hive an additional 1lb pollen patty.

Lots of pollen coming in today.

I did an inspection and found the queen! She was on a frame with lots of freshly laid eggs. This was all very exciting. She was laying eggs in the middle of the top box. She is the daughter of my "super hive" queen that succumbed to my poorly designed ventilation box this winter.

Dark coloured queen!

My green hive is an entirely different story. It is still suffering. I opened up the hive on a nice day and saw that they still were only covering 3 frames. The honey that was inside was going stale and there was almost some mold starting in the corners. I took the 3 frames of bees (in which I found their queen) and placed all of the bees in a 5 frame american nucleus hive. I took one monster of an uncapped frame of honey and placed it in the hive. This smaller arrangement should be easier on the bees. They will have a smaller volume of air to keep warm. Hopefully the queen is able to start laying so that they can get out of their current rut.

Nucleus hive replaces the big hive.