Queen cells

I inspected the Patterson hive today. The thing was packed! I removed 5 full bars of honey. I set aside 3 more that I wanted to take home after inspecting the rest of the hive. These 3 combs broke due to the heat and the wind. It was quite windy. I knew the girls didn't like the wind. I had not considered it's affect on heavy comb. It made me sick. I salvaged what I could. Made a hell of a mess. 

I opened the bottom of this hive as well.

While inspecting I found several queen cells. 2 of them were in the middle of the comb. 3 of them were on the edge of the comb. All were capped. I tried to cut one out but with disastrous results. I ended up mashing it. I'm not sure what these girls are planning. The cells in the middle imply that they are replacing their queen. The cells on the edge/bottom imply that they are readying for a swarm. 

I'll have to watch and see.

Cross Comb Baffle

Because the girls were building cross comb straight through my aluminum/cloriplast comb baffles, I modified one to try to get them to build strait without continuing through the baffle. the baffle is much longer. It goes pretty much all the way down with space on the sides. I cut a few holes in the middle (Jared's idea) to let the bees through. We're thinking that this way it still feels like part of the hive/nest instead of a separate space.

We've got these in 2 hives now. We'll see how they doo.

In the above picture you can see that they had built straight through the cloriplast baffle I had insterted between the cross comb and the empty bar. They built semi straght comb but it was still not straight.

This is the aluminum baffle. You can see the space around and through the middle.

Cross Comb Cutout followup

In only 1 week, the comb on some of the bars is complete. The zip ties can be removed.

When we put this one back together, we included empty bars between all the cutout/clipped bars.

The girls had drawn out several of the in between combs to full size. Some of the clipped comb isn't secure enough to remove the zip ties. I'll check back in another week.

Bumblebee Attack

The bees in Jared's hive were getting a bit defensive. He's taken a coupe of stings and been chased across the yard more than once.

Upon watching the hive entrance, he watched as a bumble bee flew right into the hive.

We pulled the roof and watched the "foyer*" area as the bumble tried to enter the actual hive. The girls wouldn't let the bumble into the main part of the hive.

We saw this happen several times over several days. We figured that the girls were being attacked by the bumble bees and that is why they were being overly defensive.

We found 2 dead bumblebees in the grass under the hive entrance. One of them still had a honey bee sting in it.

We reduced the entrances with half corks so that the bumblebees can't get in and we'll continue to observe. I hope this settles them down.

We also put in a modified aluminum baffle to try to encourage straight comb building.

Bumble bee trying to enter the hive (getting attacked).

Cross comb

Bumblebee with Honey bee stinger 

Two dead bumbles under the hive entrance.

Cross combing (we'll fix that later by cutting out the comb and hair clipping it in straight)

Reduced entrance holes

Cross Comb Cut Out

I've known for a while that the girls in my queen breeder hive were building cross comb. I'd stuck an aluminum baffle in there to try to force them to straighten up but they just build cross comb under it and up to the top. Still crossed.

Jared came to town for a couple days so we decided it was time to cut it out and straighten it up.

We made quite a mess. Harvested some of the honey comb as it was too heavy for the hair clips.

The hair clips work great. At least for partial combs. Full combs are a bit too heavy for them.

We cut the crooked comb out clipped it on the top with a couple of hair clips and then secured the hair clips to a top bar with zip ties. Because the comb was diagonal before we cut it out, some of it was too wide to fit when we straightened it out and it needed to be cropped down anyway. 

The bees were remarkably calm through the entire process. We didn't see the queen. I hope we didn't damage her.

Lessons learned:

Have the clips ready beforehand so I'm not assembling them as we go.

Use smoke instead of the feather. It's easier to handle the comb if it isn't crawling with bees.

Perhaps a bee vacuum would be beneficial - remove all the bees first, then manipulate the comb. I'd probably not kill so many bees that way.

It takes longer than I planned - don't rush it.

Perhaps a bucket or two under the hive to salvage dropped honey?

Cutting out honey comb

You can see the failed comb baffle after some of the comb is removed.

Hair clips in action

Later that night - bees still worked up a bit.

TBH Honey extraction.

I got this photo text yesterday from Troy. I've got a hive in his back yard.
BEES!!!!!

I've been meaning to go over to inspect this hive but haven't had a chance lately.
I decided I better have a look.
Today on lunch I made it over. I removed 5 full bars of honey.

There are at least 6 more honey bars that could come out but my bucket was getting full and the girls were getting upset. I was using a peacock feather to brush them from the comb and they got a little ornery. I took a sting to each arm before I put my long sleeves and gloves on. Then I took another sting on the leg. I spaced the honey combs out and left the empty bars between them. there are 12 brood bars. Tons of bees!

I'll go back in a week or so to harvest more. I also removed the bottom board off the hive. It hit 95 degrees yesterday. I'm sure that is why they were all hanging out outside the hive.

Peczuh inspection

Checked on the Peczuh hive this evening.
Not much activity at the entrance at all.
Not a lot of bees in the hive either.
The first 2 bars were empty honey comb.
The next bar was mostly pollen and some capped (and I suspect crystalized) honey.
The next 7 were brood bars with very little honey on top. Very scattered brood pattern. Eggs, larva, capped brood, spread all over. Some of the larva appeared dead (starved?). There doesn't seem to be enough bees in the hive to care for so much brood. On one of the bars I found 2 empty queen cells on the side. Not sure if they were cells in the making or if they were used cells. They might have swarmed recently.
The next bar was solid pollen
The next 2 were mostly capped honey.
I did find the queen.

I'll have to check them again soon. They had a strange buzz to them. Almost a frantic sound. The weren't aggressive, just off somehow.