Checked My Hive

It seems like it has been forever since I was able to go check on my bees. I wanted to ensure that they were doing ok but every week seemed to bring in bad weather. It would either snow, rain or be well below 50 degrees. I was able to quickly work my hive 3 weeks ago but that was just to throw on some fondant and add corn syrup to my hive top feeder. This past weekend was the first decent weekend that I had a full day of sunshine.

As I got to my hive, I saw that my girls were out and about, bringing in pollen. That was a great sign. What wasn't so great was seeing twenty or thirty bees dead on the ground in front of my hive. Assuming that it was disease or starvation (again, it has been 3 weeks since I last checked my hive) I began to get worried about what I would find.

Bringing in Pollen

Dead Bees in Front of Hive

The corn syrup in my hive top feeder was mostly crystalized but there were a lot of bees still feeding from it. Using my hive top, I started scrapping it out but found that it was still soft and moist so I sat it to the side for the time being. I continued checking my hive bodies and supers. There were a lot of bees between the frames and when checking my frames, I saw all stages of the brood process. I did not find my queen but I knew everything was good, having seen eggs and larva.

When I got down to my bottom brood chamber, it was completely empty. No bees, brood or honey stores. The bees must have moved up over winter. I took off the bottom brood chamber so that I could move it to the top and give my girls more room to move up if need be. As I took off the hive body, I noticed a few bees were dead on the bottom board. It all came together now with the dead bees laying at the front of my hive. Some of my girls had died over winter and the colony was cleaning them out.

All is good in the hive. My bees were looking good, I added more fondant, reversed my brood chambers and removed my hive top feeder.

I am ready for spring to come!

Checking Over the Winter

This past weekend was absolutely beautiful. I went out to my hive to see how it was doing and could see some activity out front. Temperatures got up into the high 60’s ( Don't check unless it is above 55 degrees) and even though it was cloudy, my bees were out foraging for whatever they could find and going on cleansing flights. I’ve learnt that seeing bees at the entrance doesn’t mean that your colony is still there (a friendly beekeeper thought differently and found out her hive was being robbed). I put my ear up to my hive and could hear a lot of buzzing inside. It was a great sound to hear.

My Hive

Currently, my hive has three supers on it. Bottom is based as the brood chamber where the cluster should be. The top two were mostly filled with honey frames at the beginning of winter (early November). With the weather being nice, I was able to work my hive and check my bees. I did not know what the food stores would be like for my bees so I brought fondant and corn syrup with me (always pays to be prepared).

Bees at Entrance

Bees on Inner Cover

My main concern with checking my hive was to ensure they had enough stored honey to last them a couple more months. When I took off my inner cover I found a lot of bees at the top of my hive. I was happy to see my girls doing well but I knew that there wasn’t much in the food stores. There was no corn syrup left in the hive top feeder...bummer… and only the center two frames of my top honey super had any honey left on them. My girls had broken cluster and were needing food bad.

Hive Top Feeder

I worked my way down to the bottom brood chamber. I flattened out my fondant and placed it on the frames right above the cluster. I closed up my hive and added two gallons of corn syrup to my hive top feeder.

I hope my girls are able to store some more food before another cold spell.

Following Up

About ten days ago I had placed an Api Life Var wafer onto my hive (broken into four separate pieces) along with a section of pollen patty. I have now gone back into my hive to replace the wafer with a new one and to check on my bees. When I took off my inner cover, I was not overly pleased. The pollen patty that I had put onto my hive was severally infested with small hive beetle larva and I had to go on a killing spree, killing about 20 beetles. I do have to admit that most of the beetles were hiding in corners but with the amount of larva and beetles that were in the hive top feeder, I took it off and set it to the side to deal with later.

Pollen Patty with Hive Beetle Larva

Hive Beetles Hiding in a Corner

I had only added half of a patty thinking that my bees would devour through it in no time but now that it is filled with larva, it is trash.I was told that I had added too much of the pollen patty and that if I were to continue feeding with them, I only needed to add small chunks at a time. 

Going deeper into my hive seemed to be a lot better. Still a lot of bees and a good brood pattern. When I got down to the bottom brood chamber, the wafer I had broken up and placed on my hive was completely gone. Broke up a new wafer and applied it to the four corners of the brood chamber and closed up my hive.

Broken Wafer on the Corner of a Brood Chamber

Another 7 to 10 days and I apply my last wafer for mite treatment. Everything is looking good except for the abundance of small hive beetles.

I hate dealing with Pests!

Treating My Girls For Mites

Now that the Honey Harvest is finished for my hive, I am beginning to prepare for fall. I had previously reduced the main entrance and closed off the upper entrance to help prevent robbing bees from entering my hive. Using a wooden hive top feeder, I have begun to feed my bees sugar water (2:1 ratio of sugar to water) mixed with the feeding stimulant Honey-B-Healthy. They have taken to the feed and I am checking on it every week ( so far I have added 3 gallons).

Looking into a Hive

Last time I was in my hive, I went through all the brood chamber, checking for eggs and making sure there was a decent brood pattern. I was somewhat disappointed to find that only the bottom two brood chambers had larva and eggs. I have a third brood chamber, mostly filled with honey, and above that, lays a honey super below my hive top feeder. While feeding my bees, I was hoping that the added food would implement laying from my queen.

I rotated my upper two supers, thinking that she might not have room to lay with the frames in the third brood chamber being mostly honey. While I was in my hive, I was thoroughly inspecting my bees for any deformity in their wings or visible mites. During my inspection I noticed some of my bees had smaller spread wings where as the normal bee would have their wings flat against their back. My next task was to check my mite count and see if I needed to treat.

Photo By: Lazy B Farm

My bees were not to this extent but you could see a slight difference between them and the norm.

After using a corex sheet in my IPM bottom board, I was relieved to have a mite count below the average 40 to 50 mites but I thought it best to still treat. The recommended treatment from other beekeepers was Api life Var. This treatment comes in a pack of two wafers (strong odor and should be handled with gloves), with one wafer being used per hive. 

Api life Var Package

After opening the package, I took one wafer and broke it up into four separate pieces to go on the four corners of my brood chamber. For the treatment to work properly, I needed to place these four pieces on top of my bottom brood chamber and close up my hive so that the vapors would not escape. I ensured that my entrance was reduced and my corex sheet was in place beneath my IPM bottom board.

Wafer Pieces on the Corners

Closed up my hive and now I am waiting 7 to 10 days to repeat the treatment (2 more times). I was told that if I were to see a vast majority of my bees outside of my hive, the vapors are to overpowering and I need to reduce the amount of wafer pieces I am treating with. I need my girls to be mite free ( or close to it) going into to winter.

Cleaning out the pests!

Adding a Honey Super

It has been a couple weeks since I have had a chance to check on my hive. The nectar flow has been tremendous with little spurts of rain here and there. To give you an update on where I am with my hive, I took a picture of the three brood chambers.

Bee Hive

Here is a time frame of what I have done since purchasing my hive:

Weekly Time Frame	What was done during the week
Week 1	I purchased my Hive Equipment along with a package of bees. Painted the outside of all wooden components. Set up my hive in its location.
Week 2	Installed my package of Bees
Week 3	Removed the queen cage from the hive. Made sure she was released and laying. All was good and experienced my first bee stings of the season.
Week 4	Installed another Brood Chamber
Week 6	Installed another Brood Chamber
Week 8	About to install my first Honey Super

When going out to check on my hive, I was hoping to find that my third Brood Chamber would be filled with eggs and larva, just ready to burst. With that expectation in mind, it was a great sign when I removed the inner cover to find all my frames had drawn out comb. Removing the first frame I did not see any sign of brood or larva within the cells, only nectar and pollen. As I began to move into the center frames, I was finding the frames were mostly honey and nectar rather than laid eggs. This was not a good or bad sign, it just meant that the nectar flow was so good and the queen didn't find any need to continue laying in the upper brood chamber, at least I was hoping so.

Checking the Frames

I started working down into my next brood box and I began seeing plenty of eggs and larva within the cells. My queen was present and still laying, she just did not have the need to move into the upper brood box. My intent was to add a honey super onto my hive and after speaking with my mentor, he suggested that I take the center four frames from my upper brood box and transport them into my honey super. With it being mostly nectar and pollen in these frames, it will give the bees incentive to move up and begin to work the other frames in my honey super.

Removed Four Frames

Note: If i was not able to transfer these frames into my honey super I would have sprayed my foundation with sugar water to entice the bees to move up.

When talking to another beekeeper, he had mentioned that another option would have been to add a super beneath the brood chamber that was mostly nectar and pollen. He said that this would relieve congestion within my hive. 

I went with my mentors approach and transported four frames into my honey super and replaced them with frames containing foundation. Placed a queen excluder on top of my brood chambers, set my honey super on top and closed off my hive. By placing a honey super on so late I probably will not be able to harvest honey this year. Those frames that do contain honey will more than likely be used as feeding frames.

I can still hope though!

Adding Another Brood Chamber

Before I stepped into managing my bee hive, I read books and watched videos. There was a lot of good information out there and some great demos but I can now see how hard it could be to capture every aspect of beekeeping. I'm sure that at some point I had read about this or seen photos describing it, but when I went out to my bee hive to add an additional brood chamber, I had noticed some weird formations in the comb that was being drawn out.

Photo By: Chris Bednarek

I saw that the drawn comb was forming specifically where my frames were spaced further apart and no where else. I was hesitant about pulling out the frame because they had attached the comb to the opposite frame.
I began removing the frames from the edge, working my way toward the gaped frames. Using my hive tool, I scraped the comb off from one of the frames. I knew that removing the frame would tear out the comb from the other, but it had to be done. Once the frame was removed, I was able to pull off the excess comb so that the frames could be properly set within my hive body.

Just another learning experience from a newbie.