Honey Supering

It's a honey of a super and now both hives have them.

(Pictured here is Hive#1 with its Mango coloured honey super that they got last week. The pink and white boxes are the bees' home--kitchen, pantry and nursery. Anything higher up than that is the extra honey for me.)

Beekeeping this spring has been hectic. I'm not sure if it's a second year thing or not. Gardens, taxes, feeding and medicating the bees. It's hard to keep up.

In Canada it's as if we all come out of our igloos and want to get active--all at the same time! Spring meetings and events abound. I'm sure it's like that all over the world, even for countries that don't have such cold winters.

(By the way, the Canada flag sticker on Hive #2 is patriotic but that's not why it's there. I put it there as a visual cue for the bees, especially since both hives look too much alike--remember how my newly mated queen came back to her hive last year, went in the wrong hive and was killed. So this year I'm trying to mix things up a bit colour-wise and help the bees find their correct hive).

Hive#1 continues to progress slightly ahead than Hive #2 and sporting more bees. But Hive #2 may not look as robust but on inspection they had just as much drawn comb as Hive #1. So they are keeping up, but in their own way.

Hive #2 is showing some aggression and I've been stung and received a few head butts (that's a bee warning for back-off-you-or-I'll-sting). This too when I'm not working on the hive! I'm just grateful they warn first.... but not always. A worker guard came barrelling out of the hive and went right for me, stinging me on the neck. The funny thing is after that I felt great and slept so much better that night. I wonder if that's a little apitherapy at work.

I don't see signs of skunk scratching so I'm not sure why they're ornery. Of note, once we open the hive and are pulling frames. etc., they are quiet and well behaved. It's only the guards at the stoop that are cranky.
I had a few frames of capped and uncapped honey that I'd saved in the freezer all winter. So I defrosted them and gave them to the bees in their honey supers along with frames of empty honeycombs ready for them to fill.

The whole orchard has been in bloom and on decent days the bees are very busy coming and going. They are very occupied with their thoughts to fill the larders.

(This photo is the bottom of my Styrofoam hive top feeder. Because I had a rim spacer in for 3 weeks the bees got busy. They just can't resist that space. I had to shake them all off--that's another story--and then scrape off their honey filled combs. This is Hive #1 which is doing very well.)

Now to my question: In the books it says to stick with a 7 of 10 rule. When 7 of 10 frames are drawn in comb, add another deep. This info applies particularly to new nuc colonies. But what of an established colony that has mostly drawn comb on their frames. When do I add the honey super? Do I go by how much nectar is in the frames? Shoudl it be capped or uncapped? What do you think?

They both had 3 frames capped of the 10 and the other 7 had nectar in almost every cell. With Hive #1 also roaring with a lot of bees I was concerned about swarming so I gave them a super box last week. Hive #1 being slower we waited another week (and for the rain to stop) and gave them their super today.

No stings or head butts today, but I was bearing gifts of honey. Maybe they'll like me more now.

I'm Just the Chaufeur

That's what he said that first night that we went to the bee meeting.

It was last spring and we were new to the group. We were asked to introduce ourselves. I said I was interested in becoming a beekeeper and Dad said, "I'm just the Chauffeur".

I think someone thought I needed driving around because I actually got an offer for a ride to the next meeting (which just shows you how friendly and helpful beekeepers are). Thanks Dad. Now everyone thinks I can't drive.

I thought he'd come to one or two meetings and then stop coming. But most of the members in the bee group are his age and most come from an agricultural/farming background just like he did. So there's a connection and a rapport there that he enjoys (and he keeps winning the 50/50 draw!).

Beekeeping was supposed to be my hobby but with moral support from the family. Then I had an accident last spring and broke my arm.

I needed more than moral support, I needed someone who could lift heavy boxes when I wasn't allowed to. Dad fit the bill.

Wearing his thick sweatshirt and even thicker gloves, and a hat and veil, he came to almost every visit to the bee yard. At first it was because my arm was broken. Then later it was just because it was nice to have someone lift the heavier boxes.

Then one day he said he was a beekeeper and it became "we" instead of "me".

He was the assigned the tasks as smoker person, and heavy deep lifter. He'd even hold frames of bees, albiet with gloves on.

Then everything changed this spring. I did the work on the first hive, with him watching, and him assisting. Then we'd switch and he'd do the work and I'd assist. Mom would come out too and be the papparatzi--otherwise there'd be no photos.

Recently though I heard Dad call the second hive, the one he works on, "his hive". Now it's "your hive" and "my hive". And he doesn't want me doing the work on "his hive". He wants to do it.

And last week, the gloves came off! Oh yeah, we have another beekeeper in the family.

Gidday! From Australia

Do you listen to your intuition? I wish I did on this day.

I was going to Oxford Honey & Supply to pick up some honey supers and deeps. The night before as I went through my check list I felt that subtle suggestion--Take your camera with you.

I thought, no I don't need to take my camera because I'm only going to a supply warehouse. Even the next morning I heard it again and I thought logically at the time, why, I won't use it? So I left without it.

So, because I didn't listen to my intuition I now have to apologize that the two photos I have are poor, not closeup and were done on a cell phone camera.

You see, while at the supply store there was a man standing there, another beekeeper, and he was holding a cooler.

Just before he left John, the owner, said to me, "Barb, you might want to see this."

"What?" I asked.

"Queens. It's a delivery of queens. We picked them up late last night in Toronto. They're from Australia"

The beekeeper removed the cooler lid and it was full of little queen cages, each with its own queen and attendants. And they were tooting away.

"I can hear their Aussie accents," I said.

Then I went into a side room where they were putting tiny pads of warm water onto the tops of the queen cages - offering the thirsty bees a drink - and some moisture so they could lick at the queen candy in the cage.

The beekeepers who had ordered the queens had all been called and they would soon all be dropping by to pick them up.

What I really regret camera-wise is that I don't have sound or video to play. Otherwise you'd get to hear the high pitched "queen tooting" and a few hundred wings beating, which created a surprising amount of heat.

There were about 200 queens and they were all within inches of each other. I can just imagine if I was a queen that would make me toot too!

Next time, I'll take the camera... no hesitation!

Spring Treatments for AFB and Nosema

Here we have a trio of help for the bees.

Pictured in this photo (24 Apr), resting on top of the frames are:

Peanut butter coloured pollen patties. The bees really love these and have already eaten two.

The pink is the AFB (American Foulbrood) sugar powder treatment resting on wax paper and finally, a Formic Acid pad (blue) to treat for mites.

We took the winter wraps off the second week of April.

This spring has come up so fast that it caught me by surprise. I'm playing catch up now with posts on the hive activities.

Pollen patties were added to both hives and the bees have really been enjoying them. The photo above is when a fresh patty is laid on the top bars. The next photo is when the hive was just opened a week or so later.

The pollen patties come sandwiched between wax paper - it makes them easier to handle, although the more time they spend in the sun the more gooey they can get. The paper has small holes cut out and the bees were very quick to dunk down inside these holes to get a the food.

Later they chew up and carry out the leftover wax paper from the hive.

Hive #1, with more bees, gobbled their patties in less than a week and needed more. This hive has more bees than the other hive.

This caught me by surprise. I had more patties but there were at home in the freezer--oops!

For this trip, Dad and I were adding Formic Acid pads as a mite treatment to both the hives. The formic pads come inside a clear plastic wrap. The clear plastic is cut away, leaving behind the foam pad which stays inside it's blue plastic cover. There are holes in the bottom of the plastic and the pad is set, holes side down, on a couple of sticks. The sticks keep the pads off the actual wood frames of the hive.

Because of the thickness of the pad and the addition of sticks, a rim spacer is needed to create a little space - so we added those to--that's the lime green coloured rim in the photo.

The smoker was lit but it wasn't needed. As soon as the bees smelled the Formic Pad they dove down inside their hive and the buzzing went way up. I really hated doing this treatment. The instructions warn that you could lose up to 14 days worth of brood with this treatment. I was told that the reason the larvae die is because the nurse bees move away from the frame because of the smell and the bees are then not kept warm or fed and die. (Addendum to this note - the hive increased in size each week and it did not appear to lose a lot of brood).

The Formic also penetrates the capped cells to kill the mites, and often it kills the pupae too. But not treating would make things much worse. We examined the sticky mite boards prior to putting the formic on and Hive #2 is heavily infested - and they have less bees.

(Photo at left - bees enjoy eating their pollen patties).

I also watched this hive put out live deformed bees. These workers, born damaged as a result of the mites, are doomed to die and cannot support their hive. It's sad to see them.

We did remember to remove the entrance reducers once the Formic pads were in place.

A mite treatment is like chemotherapy. You're trying to burn out or kill off the cancer but not the patient. With the mites, you're trying to kill one insect but not the other. Like chemo, the treatment takes the patient down in an attempt to save their life.

It was also time for an AFB treatment, that powder is sprinkled onto wax paper that rests on the tops of the frames. I also gave them Fumigilan B to treat nosema.

We topped up their sugar water and then closed up the hive.

While taking photos I noticed some brown spots on the front of the hive. I don't think they were there prior to taking the wraps off. It could be Nosema (I hope not) or possibly a dysentery.

I'll have to keep my eye on that. (Addendum - no further brown poop seen on the outside of the hives.)

If you are new to beekeeping or you'd like to see a list of the recommendations and options for spring treatments, the Ontario Bee Association has an excellent list of what needs to be done and when. You can view it here. I found it most useful to remind me what I'll need to do next.

Sick Bee

Vampires are a really hot item these days in novels and movies. Both kids and adults have their PG and R rated versions of programming that we can watch... and enjoy.

But this is no pleasure and this one is a real X-Rated Horror.

Click the picture to enlarge the photo and you'll see why.

I found her outside her hive. She'd been evicted by her sisters. They probably didn't want to but they knew they had to.

She'll die of course. Probably later that night as the temperature dropped and the spring air cools her body. Whether her hunger or the cold air would get her first, I'm not sure. I don't want to think about it.

I hated seeing her suffering. I wouldn't feed her either--not because I didn't want to--but because I knew it would only prolong the suffering and unavoidable death.

She can't fly and she could barely walk. Her abdomen is deformed. Probably her internal organs aren't functioning well either.

Are you wondering why?

Because of a vampire called Varroa Destructor. Varroa Mites were inside this bee's cell when she was a defenseless pupae, capped and waiting to make her final metamorphosis into a worker bee.

They fed so well on her--latching onto the thorax, her back, where there's a good supply of blood to suck on. They fed so vigorously that they destroyed her tissue. Her body could not develop normally and her wings and body are malformed.

She'll never fly. She'll never be a nurse bee. She'll never fulfill the role she was born to do.

It could be Deformed Wing Virus (DWV). Mites are dirty mouthed and like mosquitoes they not only steal a blood meal, they spread germs and disease as well.

What can the beekeeper do? There are various methods to treat the hive, some organic and others not. For myself, I'll be using a natural product called Formic Acid. The fumes it creates eats away at the mite's shell and weakens/kills it. The weakened mites lose their grip on the bee's fur and falls. Hopefully the fallen mite will land on the greased board sticky board at the bottom of the hive where it will stick and be held until it dies.

Photo - Here's the sticky board - it's plastic cardboard that sits under a screen at the bottom of the hive. The bees can't get through the screen (called a Varroa Screen) but the mites do. It's been greased with Crisco Shortening.

Use Crisco, vaseline or any product that will make the board sticky - this will trap and hold the mite preventing it from climbing back up in the hive and find another bee to latch onto.

To see the mites in the photo - you can easily count them. Click on the photo to enlarge. I've circled a couple in red so you can see what they look like.

Hive #2 is a concern - it was heavily infested before the Formic Acid was put in the hive. The photo is from after the Formic was put in place.

To determine the level of infestation beekeepers will put in a cleanly greased board and then return in either 24 or 72 hours. If 72 hours, divide the total mites counted on the board by 3 to get the daily drop levels. Anything over 20 is considered a very heavy infestation.

To determine the effectiveness of the treatment, a count is also done, again on a clean board, while the treatment is in place.

With the Formic Acid pads fumigating the hive a lot more mites are falling. I'm certainly not sorry to hear that!

This girl will never fly or enjoy being a nurse bee but I hope I've given her short life meaning in a new bee task as an Education Bee. Let her example help you make decisions on how you'll care for your hives.

Spring Bee Chores

I'm back! Actually, I never left but I did get pretty busy for a few weeks.

My next few posting will be catch-up and to make a record of my activities over the last three weeks.

(Photo - bees under the plexi-glass panel of the hive top feeder).

First, how are YOUR bees? Did they survive the winter? Are you feeding and/or doing mite treatments? What treatment plan are you following? I look forward to reading about your hives or interest in the comments.

My bees survived the winter. Yeah!!! My first two hives. Our Canadian winter was very mild which was unusual.

I started feeding a 2:1 sugar/water syrup using a hive top feeder the second week of April. Temperatures had gone up considerably with some days as high as 26 degrees Celsius. That is unseasonably warm. I did leave the winter wraps on the first week of April while the nights were still pretty cool.

Spring took me by surprise so I wasn't ready as quickly as other experienced beekeepers to put in the pollen patties and get the syrup on. I think I'm about a week behind the professional beekeepers.

I ordered pollen patties from Munro Honey. They come rolled flat and cut in a rectangle. The pollen is mixed with honey and maybe some vitamins and is put between wax paper. I laid them right on the top bars of the hive. No rim spacer was required since the patties fit in the small space between the tops of the frames and the inner cover.

(Photo - as soon as the hive winter wraps came off, the bees in Hive #1 set to sending out homing scents for returning bees to follow - note their rears up in the air).

The bees were landing on the patties even before I could get them on the hive. They must smell good. They look like peanut butter, brown and sticky.

Hive #1 with the purchased queen appeared to have more bees than Hive #2 with their own made queen. I must note that I feel I took too much honey from Hive #2 last season, considering the poor weather we had the bees didn't get a chance to build up more honey after I took a super from them. I feel that set them back a bit.

Ontario has gone on record (maybe all of Canada but I can't confirm that) that last year was the worst honey year ever. Beekeepers reported bringing in half the amount of honey as usual. Winter kill reports haven't been done yet but the Ontario Bee Association and Tech Team will be surveying beekeepers to get the stats.

The unofficial report at our last local bee meeting gave percentages of losses from 20 to 50%.

Hive #1 ate their 2 patties in a week while Hive #2 still had one left. I gave them both more. Hive #1 was also taking down the syrup faster. It was obvious that the Hive #1 has more bees than the other.

The bees were bringing in lots of pollen. I think the foraging at this new bee yard will be much better than the damp dark swamp.

Let's hope for a great summer for the bees... and us.

More on The Buzz About Bees and a Word from the Author

What a wonderful surprise to hear personally from the author of the book I had blogged about. You can find the book, The Buzz About Bees on Amazon.ca. There are more reviews of the book on Amazon.com as well.

Here's what the author had to say:

"If you want to see hot bees coming and going in a life stream online, please go to http://www.hobos-online.de/.

For more details on this honey bee educational project please see the two PDF attachments.

HOBOS is being build piece by piece, so a visit there from time to time allows to follow the progress. We will have also webcams inside the colony to study heater bees at work."

HOBOS (HoneyBee Online Studies)is an internet portal, giving access into the life of a honey bee colony for the purpose of education and research. Honey bees are key organisms for understanding aspects of behaviour, ecology and agriculture.

Read more about HOBOS and BeeGroup on this BeeGroup website.