Dandelion Bloom: 1st Treatment

We have had some pretty poor weather since the last blog post. We all knew that the good times could not last. We are still experiencing some pretty poor weather, with cold nights and not so warm days.

Bee waters near the hives

The bees were spending a lot of time around the house looking for water; especially when it was really dry out. So I took a couple of old chicken feeders; threw in some stones and topped them off with some clean water. These waterers are located close to the hives and more importantly, away from the house.

Dandelion bloom: pollen coming in!

The dandelion flowers are in full bloom. The colour of the dandelion pollen is just striking. The bees are quite happy that I have held off on cutting my lawn so that they can get lots of pollen to feed their young.

Excellent brood pattern: Especially for the time of year

One of my more populous hives has some pretty nice brood pattern, especially for this time of the year. It has been quite poor, (freezing and wet) weather for the last long while and they were still able to keep excellent brood.

Lots of bees

The hives were just boiling over with bees. This means that when the honey flows begin, I better be ready to add the supers.

Egg dangling out! What the heck?

I found this queen running around on the frames with what appeared to be an egg partially hanging out. It was super weird. She actually walked a fair bit before it "fell" out. I looked in other cells and her pattern was decent and she did not have any doubles.

Monster sized queen. Significantly larger than others.

I cannot get over the size of this queen. She is quite  a bit larger than the other queens. She also has darker colouration. This hive is doing quite well.

Bottom board cleaning: chalkbrood

I took apart the one hive because it seemed to have a lot of chalkbrood on the bottom board. It was pretty horrible. The hive stand is pretty rickety, and the hive appears to be sloping backward, so the moisture builds up and does not go down and out of the hive. This queen also has poor brood pattern (due to chalkbrood). It had poor brood pattern last year as well, I am going to have to replace this queen.

1st Inspection: Everything looks good...so far

I have been super busy on the farm and at work these days but I took a half hour to take a look inside some of my hives at home and here are the pictures I got. Unfortunately my camera had to use flash, if not I think the pictures would have turned out better.

Queen & entourage

I found the queen and she relaxed and started laying. So, take a look at her and her group of bees. It was quite the sight. I have not had the chance to witness this too many times, glad I got to take some photos.

Queen with abdomen down in cell, laying down an egg.

So I found the queen in my first two hives. For the second hive, I actually found her on the first frame I pulled out!
My top boxes also seemed to still be quite heavy with honey. This is a mostly good thing. I imagine that the weather is going to get cooler again. We are breaking records in my area. The average temperature for this time of year is 5C; and we have just had 3 days in a row with above 25C! Just crazy. The bees are loving it, and so are farmers. We are itching to get out in the fields.

In my third hive, I could not find the queen but I did find some tell tale signs of her.

Larvae on comb between the boxes

Capped cells and various stages around

Day old eggs! Can you spot them?

I am so far very impressed with my girls. They have a very early start on the year. Unfortunately I have not been able to keep up with the equipment, so I am going to have to put in a couple of days building more frames, bottom boards, inner covers so that I can prepare for splitting the hives.

First Pollen!

The bees were bringing in their first pollen of the year. And these photos are from March 16th!


Mouse guards knocking pollen sacs off! Opps.

Opened the lid of a hive

Last year they started collecting pollen April 9th, and I thought that was earlier. It is going to be an interesting season!

They're alive! I'm Alive...

Yesterday was -5C and with the wind it felt like -10C. It was pretty miserable. But today was absolutely beautiful! It was not very windy and I saw the temperature get up to +14C! What a difference. The bees noticed the change of weather as well.

I've been neglecting the blog because I have not been a ble to get into the hives and see the girls. But today I was able to finally get my head back into the hives.

Snow almost gone, bees everywhere.

They were out and about.

A bit closer view of the bees going for cleansing flights and cleaning out the dead.

All the hives were active. No dead hives!

Insane weather. It looks like the bees are going to get out this week.

My other 2 hives at my parents place apparently were quite busy as well. That means that all 6 of my hives have made it through the winter! I opened up a couple of hives and they were heavy with honey still, which is excellent. I definitely do not want to start feeding them.

I do not have any extra equipment, so I am going to have to start getting that together so that I can make splits in the spring. My problem with making splits is that I will have too many hives to manage. Six hives is plenty of work for me; this is a hobby... isn't it? Also, if my hives do as well this year as they did last year (210 lbs per hive), then I would be doomed! How do you sell so much honey?!?

News Article: Zombie Bees!

This is almost too crazy to even write about but I will attempt to anyways. A new research paper has come out that talks about a study done where it appears as though a fly is targeting honey bees to lay their eggs. It appears as though these flies lay eggs in the bees' abdomen. These parasitic eggs essentially feed off the insides of the honey bee. While doing so, the bees display "zombie" behaviour by doing out of ordinary things like congregate near lights. When they die, the fly larvae emerge.

The study says that this is potentially an explanation for why the bees just disappear in CCD. Because they are zombies!

Check out the article below:

UK Telegraph: Bee Zombies

Article: Bees Mimic Brain Neurons

A new interesting article has come out from Cornell University about the way that bees collaborate amongst the scout drones to decide on the best site for swarming to. This sounds a whole lot like the book I bought about the same topic. It is probably because the author is the same person who did this study. His name is Tom Seeley; his book "Honeybee Democracy" is very interesting.

The article is very interesting, but it does not seem like new information to me because I read his book last year. The most important information I got out of his book is essentially how to design the best swarm capturing box. I should have installed a couple of those boxes around my hives last year. I lost a nucleus hive to a swarm.

Check out the article below:

News Article: Bee Behavior Mimics Brain Neuron Function

That's another wrap!

Two weeks ago I put the wrap on the hives because the nights were consistantly chilly. For my two monster hives I pushed them together and put some R5 insulation all around but not in between the hives and then I wrapped it with some used tar paper. I also placed a box and shavings on top of their inner cover. These shavings should absorb any moisture that does not escape.

My monster hives(each gave 200lbs) are wrapped an ready for winter.

A few days later I also wrapped my 4 hives at my home. I used a 'bee cozy' wrap for each one and I put insulation on the inner cover. Mouse guards have been on all hives for several weeks now. A few days after putting on my last covers, this is what I woke up to! For the first time ever, I had my covers on before the first snow.

First snow with covers

 A few days later it was almost 10 deg during the day. I placed all of my syrup from cleaning up the feeders into a plastic bottom and my bees were cleaning it up.

Bees foraging on hardened syrup.

The bees are still busy during the day when it is around 10deg. But I think winter is on its way and they should enjoy their freedom while they can.

Hives with 'bee cozy' on ready for winter.

This signals the end of the season, there is nothing left for me to do but hope that my preperations will hold the bees through the winter. On clear winter days, I do take off the mouse guard and scape out the dead bees that may block the entrance.