Recent Reading

An analysis of bee collection data over the past 130 years shows that spring arrives about 10 days earlier than in the 1880s, and bees and flowering plants have kept pace by arriving earlier in lock-step. The study also found that most of this shift has occurred since 1970, when the change in mean annual temperature has increased most rapidly, according to Bryan Danforth, Cornell professor of entomology, who co-authored a study published the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Dec. 5, 2011.)
-- Bee Culture Blog by Kim Flottum (sign up at http://www.beeculture.com/)

"... honey bees must consume between 6.6 and 8.8 pounds of honey to produce one pound of beeswax."
-- Bee Culture magazine, Dec 2011, p.55.
This is an obvious reason why most beekeepers use artificial foundation and comb to increase production. On the other hand, wax is more valuable than honey. I prefer to let the bees do whatever the hell they want to do. I'm clearly not going into producing honey for income any time soon. I've been resistant to opening the hive to inspect which is something most keepers do frequently. Seems like it gives the bees a lot more work to reseal with propolis.

Some other plants that bees like: clover, alfalfa, fruit and nut trees, Linden trees, Black Locust tres, Rasberry brambles. Willow, Alder and Asters are important for pollen rather than nectar.

Queen of the Sun

We went to a bee movie last week at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute:
Queen of the Sun - What are the Bees Telling Us? http://www.queenofthesun.com/
Take a look at the link, you'll get some idea of the content. Most of the information was familiar, but seeing film and closeups of so many things was a real eye opener. Also, some of the people they found were pretty strange. It starts with the woman you see in the pic on the website dancing, covered by bees! The director and the producer came on via Skype after the movie for a Q&A. They said she got about 15 stings dancing - that's why her upper lip is puffy. Pretty good concentration. If you want to see it, it's a crap shoot. They list the viewings on the website and they're all over the map.

Towards the end, I started thinking about the next hive. I've noticed that most keepers have more than one. They can be right next to each other and the bees figure out which one is theirs. I was thinking of doing that in the yard, next to the first one, but I saw an indoor hive a few weeks ago and realized I could put one on the porch. The entry would be 10 feet off the ground so there would be no interference.

I saw an indoor hive at the last Guild meeting a few weeks ago on the 3rd floor of a school. It was all glass/plexiglass. The entrance was a pipe that went through the wall to outside. The hive is sealed inside. It's for educational purposes for the students. A woman on the Guild board manages it. She says when she does maintenance, she puts on the full suit, shuts the door and opens a window. Any escapees just go out the window and back in the hive.

The back porch has screens in the summer and storm windows in the winter. It will be protected from moisture both because the porch has a roof and the hive will be well above ground. The first hive is in the wettest part of the yard. The word is that moisture is more of a problem for the bees than temperature.

I will be thinking about design. It will still be a form of Top Bar, but it will definitely have an observation window - I regret not doing it for the first one. The window needs a cover since the bees prefer darkness in the hive. The cover will be different since there is much less of a moisture issue.

The entrance(s) will be towards one end. Matt recommends that. I think the bees tend to work from one end to the other. In the 1st hive, they started building in the middle because of the entrances, I guess. When they're trying to get through the winter, they work their way through the honey supply. If they don't start at one end, they work their way to an end then are reluctant to skip over to the other end. Apparently, they prefer being warm to eating - not necessarily a good survival skill for the winter.

I'll have my fingers crossed about the 1st hive until late March. The bees have been out briefly when it's been warm enough, but it's getting too cold and they haven't been out for a while.

Next year, let the weeds grow for the bees when you can. Most of the top listings seem to be weeds; no idea why. However, they do like bee balm and lavender. There are lots of others; in case of doubt, plant things with flowers. I'll list more as I find them.

October Snow

The pre-halloween snowstorm covered the hive, but melted off in a day or two. Yesterday, when the sun hit the hive, the bees were out in force, so it seems it was no problem. We've reached the point where we just wait until March to see if they survive the winter.

My top bar hive has screen on the bottom, as per the original design. In preparation for winter, I finally made a cover for the bottom. It's just a board that's braced on either end. I plugged the entrances with wine corks beforehand to keep the bees from watching me work. When I pulled them out, a few came right out. I still probably need to put some insulation of some sort inside the hive.

I just finished watching several videos on YouTube. Amazing! The last one was of someone removing a hive from an attic. He vacuumed the bees, cut off and saved the comb, installed the comb in a hive, and put the bees in. Others were about harvesting the wax and robber bees.
I started because one video was recommended which showed skips (?) in Germany. Check it out.

No Hive Beetles!

It warmed enough to take another look. I couldn't see a single hive beetle! No idea whether they are hiding or gone, but I like it. There were a few on the bottom screen the other day, so I squashed them or brushed them off.

There seem to be fewer bees. Very few are sleeping outside overnight and inside was less crowded. This is the right side, which would have been full of bees earlier:



The left side is similar:
The dark brown comb on the bottom was in a pic posted 9/16 with many filled cells. I thought maybe they were drone. Anyway, they've hatched. The dark brown is because this is brood comb which is constantly reused and retains some materials from each new bee which gives it the color.

There has been a curious behavior for a week or two. I'll see a bee grabbing hold of another bee and trying to drag it away. Sometimes they succeed and often just fall off the doorstep. The bee being attacked is bigger, so I wonder if it's a drone. I saw it again today but in the left side of the hive.

First Time

I'm experimenting with transferring the bee journal to a blog. The photos are making a pdf file prohibitive for mailing. One of the first steps is to see if I can post to previous dates and backload. I started a 9/16 entry, so that works. Positioning the photos is awkward.

Hive Beetles

The right side of the hive seems to have the hive beetles. In one pic you can see the black dots all over. The 2nd is a closeup of a beetle in a cell.

Looking Inside

I put on the full beekeeper's outfit and even used the smoker for the first time. I wanted to get a better look inside which I haven't done so far except for the ends. This photo is the left side (from the back). The hive is 4 ft long and there is comb almost to both ends. The end bar is shown - which is plexiglass so you can see through it. I pulled that bar out so you could see that the bees are applying propolis to it as well and built comb on the one on the other side.

When I moved a few bars, part of the comb fell to the bottom. Some of the cells are sealed. Are these drone cells?