Almost gone

Checked the remaining bees last night, not good. The cold/wet weather is killing them off slowly. I dont think they will make it one more week. So I have 2 swarm boxes out to get swarms.

Not quite dead

Checked out the MH hive yesterday, it's not quite dead. There are about 50 bees in it still living and I saw the queen yesterday. I did not dig into the hive much to look for brood. I want to leave them alone for a bit. If I catch a swarm I'll drop it on top.

I made some fondant patties for them (5:1 sugar:water). I poured it into cup cake wrappers, let it harder, peeled off the paper, and put it on the top of the frames. They seemed to go after them, I'll check and see how if they are eaten next weekend.

MH hive is dead

I checked out the MH hive today. It's dead, there are maybe about 2 dozen bees clustered in side, I did not see a queen, I did not see any eggs/brood at all. There are a few bees going in /out, but they could be robbers. I asked Lynn to cover the entrance up and I'd come back later this week to collect up the hive and clean it up. There are probably 5 full frames of capped honey total in the hive (2 deeps, 1 medium super).

My two spare hives have been cleaned up, freshly painted, and are at Fuzzys just waiting for swarms. I'll clean up the MH hive and leave it and my nuk in MH to try to get a swarm there.

Damn!!!

New Location found

The place I checked out on Sunday looks good, I'll be cleaning up my hives and making a stand for the new place. yeah! Now I just need bees.
I put a feeder on the MH hive, they have not touched the pollen patty. Maybe they will drink some sugar water. There are bees going in/out, but not many.

MH Hive status

The MH hive seems to be surviving, I've sat with them and noticed they bees are bringing in pollen. Not as many bees as I'd like to see, it's been a wet winter. Since it's Jan already, I added a pollen patty to the top so they have food for brood.

I left the top super on last winter since the frames were not fully capped off, the bees have moved into the top deep/top super and left the bottom deep. I'll have to swap the deeps and remove the super once the weather warms up and the population rises.

I am checking out a possible location for another hive in MH, just down the road from the existing hive. I am considering buying 2 packages of bees from the bee guild instead of waiting for swarms.

Hive status: SJ and MH

Inspected the hives yesterday/today.

The MH hive is strong, lots of bees. I removed 4 super frames and consolidated the 2 supers into 1 super with the remaining partially drawn frames. The 2nd deep has lots of bees in it and capped brood cells in the middle of the deep with 2 frames of honey on each side. Looks good.

The SJ hive is kaputt. I checked it yesterday, the supers were only partially drawn/capped. The top deep was full of honey and there were very few bees in the top deep/supers. Looks like they had a late season swarm. The population seemed to be very low from what I saw going in/oiut and in the top deep/supers. The frames in the top deep were attached to the sides/bottom deep with lots of bur comb. In removing the frames for inspection, I tore open quite a bit of honeycomb. That was a mistake in robbing season.

Today when I came back to the hive to remove the supers, Fuzzy and I saw a cloud of bees all around my hive. They were at the seams between the supers trying to get in, they were bombarding the entrance, the hive was being robbed.

I decided to put the partially drawn supers on Fuzzy's hive next to mine to see if his bees cap off the honey. I removed the top deep and put it in a box to extract it tonight. I put an entrance reducer in the hive to try to help any of my bees who might be left (slim chance).

Fuzzy just sent me this email:
About 6:30pm, (sunset), I suited up and went over and popped the top and innercover on your hive. I figured that most of the raiders would happily head for their respective homes. Sure enough there was an immediate cloud of bees exiting.

Went back (suitless) at 8pm in the dark with a flashlight. It appears that there are now fewer than 100 bees left inside the hive. So I put the cover(s) back on and sealed it up.

Looks like I helped kill my hive. Darn!
The picture above is of the robbers.

Triple Hive check

Was out of town last week/weekend so checked the hives the weekend of Aug 14-15th.
MH is going like gang busters. I might need to pull out capped frames to give the stingers room to work.

SJ is going well. Most of the new super frames are partially drawn out and middle frames are capped.

I added a deep with drawn frames to Toyon to give them a hand. I was afraid of them filling out the top super and having a late season swarm. That would be bad on the hive since winter seems to be approaching early this year.

Hive checks

Checked Toyon on Friday, looking good. The super that was put on as the 2nd deep is partially drawn with nectar. No brood in this 'top super body' . But I did see brood in the bottom deep. So I've ordered a deep and I'll swap the deep in with 6 drawn frames and an excluder.

Checked MH and removed 8 frames from the top super. Then I moved the now mostly empty super below the partially drawn lower super. Maybe the bees will finish the 2 outside partially drawn frames of the ex-top super.

Grabbing some sweet stuff

Fuzzy warned me that the MH hive might be getting ready to swarm since the top super was so full. So I decided to check the top deep. Last night I smoked them, took off the supers (man those are heavy), and checked the top deep. Lots of bees, the 2 outside frames had only honey. The inner frames had honey and open space and capped brood. So I grabbed the 2 outer frames, swapped in some empty drawn frames, and closed it up.

Now I need to extra those 2 frames. I don't have an extractor yet, maybe I should make one with my son.

Hive work

Checked out the hives. Lots of busy bees!
Here's what I did:

Toyon: my co-beek added a super as the 2nd deep. I know, should have used a deep but I forgot to get one and the bees needed room. I want to minimize swarms!

SJ: Hive looked busy, they have about half the frames in the super drawn out and have started to fill the cells with nectar. They even have some capped cells already. I slid the queen excluder in under the super to keep her majesty out. I did not see any brood or her so I figured it was safe.

MH: Wow! Super is drawn out and only the 2 outside frames are not capped! I was amazed. I checked all frames, no brood. So I slid in the excluder and a 2nd super under the first super. Lots and lots of honey!

Links to pictures.

MH hive quick check

I did a quick check on MH hive. Removed the upper cover, looked under the inner cover and was greeted by lots of bees looking at me. I decided since it rather late and I did not have my smoker not to go any further. Hopefully they have pulled out the super I have on the hive. Just need to see what they have in the super since I left off the excluder to encourage them to draw it out.

MH Hive check

I checked the MH hive today, they are finally pulling some comb out in the super. But I had the middle 2 frames too far apart and they built a burr comb 'bridge' between them so I scraped part of it off to get the frames to set properly. There are a lot of bees in the 2nd deep, looks like almost 10 frames. See the pictures at the link below.

Current Pics

MH Hive status

I checked on the MH hive this last weekend. Here is what I found:

Honey super empty as expected.

Top deep had 2 frames of capped honey which I removed. Rest of the frames were partially capped/uncapped honey. I moved them to the outside and put empty frames in the middle.

The lower deep had a little honey with empty brood comb and capped brood and I saw the queen. I expect the brood is from the previous queen and will be hatching out soon.

So I removed the 2 full frames and swapped the deeps and put the super back on.

So now I wait to see what they do.

Hive Status

Well, looks like both hives don't like the queen excluders. So last Sunday (3/21/10) I removed both of them. Let's see if the bees start pulling out comb in the supers. Fuzzy checked the SJ hive the weekend of 3/27 and said they had not started drawing out comb yet...

Swarm!!!

Well, earlier this week was hectic. My step dad called on Monday saying he was out weeding the back, heard a humming noise, looked up and was startled to see a 'cloud' of bees. He quickly ran inside and called me. The bees settled into a mass about as wide as a football and about 2 feet long. Unfortunately, I could not run out there right away and the bees disappeared. I think they went back into the hive. I went out and checked the hive, the honey super I put on 1 month ago was barely touched. And the bees were a little touchy and did not want my face in their hive. I left the super on and closed up the hive.

Tuesday I was called again, the bees were swarming. I quickly packed up and headed down. As I got there, I went into the hive and could see the swarm had taken to the air again. I ran into the house and took my gear out on the deck. But they were moving. I ran out front and watched as the swarm wen over my head. And headed over the valley towards the other side. I ran down the hill and tried to follow them, but they were too high in the air and I lost them. Bummer!

I went back and checked out the hive. The amount of bees were smaller but there are still a lot of bees.

I emailed Fuzzy and he feels the bees have filled up the brood area with honey and since the queen does not have room, she feels crowded and the bees are swarming. So this weekend Fuzzy and I are going to move around the frames, open up the honey, and try to give the bees more room. Hopefully w/o getting stung.

3rd hive!

I've found a place for a third hive and set it up last Friday (3/5/2010). It's at a house on the east side of San Jose (initials will be ES).

Just tonight I setup a swarm hive (NUC). It's a smaller deep hive box that only holds 5 frames. I've put the 3 frames I removed and scraped off the honey. The frames still have wax and honey on them wax so hopefully any swarm in the area will move in and setup house. While I was there I did a quick check of the hive. There are a small group of bees on the front porch bundled up on one side (about 20). I could feel the heat coming from the entrance. Wonder if I need to put the reducer back in. I did a quick peak under the cover, there were lots of bees in the top super. As well as about 12 small earwigs! Argh! I scraped them off of the hive with my knife blade, looks like I need to refresh the oil in the cat food cans the legs of the base stand in.

Got me again!

One of the ladies got me again. Stung me thru the pants. I think I need to get a full bee suit so I can increase the distance. Or get a smoker. Which I'll do, going to order one soon. I was trying to reverse the deeps, but the hive was FULL of bees. Must have been 16+ frames of bees. The top deep had 5 frames of brood and I wanted to move them down. But the slope makes it hard to move deeps, so I was moving just the frames. I got one fame moved and a little sister stung me right above my left knee. I ended up putting the hive back together, then putting an queen excluder a super on top (after spraying the frames with a 1:1 super water solution). We'll see how that goes.

Here's a picture of my first bit of honey draining:

Hive status

Last Saturday I visited both hives. I hoped to take out some extra honey frames so I could give the queen some room (and get my first batch of honey). But no go, the weather here has been wet and cold and they have been eating the honey. I also found that the frames I thought were fully drawn out were not.
I did give Fuzzy a frame with brood and nurse bees to help his hive that is next to my SJ hive. He told me last night at the BeeGuild Mtg (see links on the right) that the hive has lots of activity now.


Link to Pictures

Rainy day bees

I checked the MH hive last weekend. It was too cold and drizzly to go into the hive, so I kneeled outside and watched the bees going in and out. The few adventurous ones are bringing in pollen so there is brood inside. There were also about a dozen bees on the weeds/ground in front of the hive, they were cold and wet and barely moving. I tried to help the ones with their pollen sacks full into the hive, they seemed to be ok. I tried to help a few others, but one was thrown back out right away. Hopefully it will be warmer so I can swap out some honey frames to give them room to make brood com. I want to try to stop having a swarm this year.

Hive check - doing good

I checked the MH hive on Sunday. Lots of bees, lots of pollen being brought into the hive. In the top deep, there are only 3 frame sides not fully drawn out yet. But they are drawing them out with comb. I want to swap out a few honey frames with empty frames to give them room in a week or so. I also want to make some drone frames to add to the deeps to help with any possible Vorroa mite problems. I've not seen any motes yet, but I am not assuming they are not there.