bee loss

We took down the other hive today, those bees had left as well. We will be looking for more bees in the spring.

Bee Medicine

http://apitherapy.blogspot.com/ this blog focuses on medicinal uses of honey, medical studies about any aspect of honey, etc.

Scientific quest to refine bee breeding

Breeding bees: Scientists aim to improve Canadian honeybee http://www.digitaljournal.com/science/breeding-bees-scientists-aiming-to-improve-the-canadian-honeybee/article/448633 via @digitaljournal

Hive 1 done

Last week there was some mad bee activity in the yard, this weekend it was obvious that hive one was finished. Light, empty boxes; ground beneath covered with fine white wax bits. All of the frames had been robbed, the wax cappings chewed off and discarded to litter the hive like so much sawdust. Best case scenario is that hive 2 stole it all; their boxes are very heavy.
Empty frames of drawn comb harbored a few wax moths. We froze the good frames (16) and are melting down the old black ones (chose 8 worst frames, most 2 yr old).
This is how it plays out after the previous observation; the hive had already failed. We will bring all the hardware in for the winter. Good luck to hive 2😓

Hive loss?

We gave had something strange happen, a colony we thought was our best is now nearly empty. Only a few bees are still present, we could not find a queen. Did we fail to keep up the hive, were the ants too much to bear? Did they swarm off, how did we miss seeing it? We reduced to 2 boxes, gave a frame 1/3rd full of pollen to hive 1 swapping for a un-drawn frame. Took off top feeders, re-greased the stand legs against ants. On hive 2 we put the feeder shim on top and put in a block of fondant.  Small hive beetles were present, not very numerous.

hive inspection

hive inspection. hive 1 only. Too late in the day, getting late in the season. Magic bees teleported inside my head veil and I got stung twice on the earlobe. A bee buzzing directly into my ear canal, I shouted 'take the frame! take the frame!' and pushed a few thousand bees into my wife's hands as I ran off. The hive is solid honey store in that box 3, still no drawout in box 4 - added them too late in the season, no doubt. Box 1 and 2 have brood, pollen, and beebread but don't seem to have much honey in them. Several frames are completely empty. One evening last week we observed a crazy huge number of bees in the air outside the hive and concluded that it was not a swarm, because they did not go fill the entire front yard, but orientation flights for a crazy huge number of young bees. We opened this hive after 6pm, no worker flights observed so I'm sure everyone was home and having dinner when we stopped by. After taking boxes off so we could start at the bottom, we inspected 3 or 4 frames per box. Nothing in the way of beetles or other hangers-on observed. Not a lot of time to inspect bees on frames for varroa etc. Only a very modest amount of burr comb in the brood chamber; lots of bees hanging about in that empty 4th box and in the large top shim area. Did not see queen cells. Strange that neither hive seems to use the top entrances, seeming to prefer the bottom exclusively. Did not get into hive 2.

Stung thousands of times

Hey Reuters, was it a Swarm, or was it a Hive? It couldna been both!
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0OT03N20150613?irpc=932

Hive inspection

First time in hives in a while. Hive 2 has drawn and filled the super we gave to them in April. Added another super.
Hive 1 seems to be on the path to recovery with more bees present and better brood pattern. Queen may be slow layer or possibly not well mated? Bee buildup is so slow. Took away sugar feeder as it wasn't getting much use and too many ants came in. Its hard to keep a proper grease barrier on the stand legs, and grass grows up to make ant bridges.
We are sure we will be able to get a full box of harvest from hive 2.

All about crystallized honey

Wired talks of crystallized honey - is it any good? Why does it happen?
http://www.wired.com/2014/03/crystalized-honey/

Bee spill

http://www.king5.com/story/news/local/2015/04/17/semi-overturns-bees-i5/25925049/

Varroa mite sampling

http://beeinformed.org/2015/03/know-your-honey-bee-colonies-non-destructive-testing-for-varroa-mites/ How to perform varroa mite sampling using powedered suger and a jar.

The hives survived the winter!

Temperatures got to 56 today, so we had a mini hive inspection. The hive 1 has the cluster up in the top box, hive 2 seems to still be in the bottom box. Neither has touched the candy boards. Lots of honey still in the boxes, we may have been very conservative in not taking any from them last fall but better safe than sorry. We did not lift the super off; we will probably wait for 60 to do a full inspection. Happy times in bee land!