Bad News, Good News, and Really Good News!

Bad News:
I had Jerry (from Moab) come by to inspect my hives and take bee samples for a USDA survey he's working on. The first hive we decided to work was my queen box in the back yard.
We went through the entire hive, both colonies and didn't see any open brood or eggs. There were a few capped drone cells and a few capped worker cells but that's it. I had split these hives 18 days ago (story here). We did here piping on the north end and we found opened queen cells on both ends. I'll wait a week and check again before I really worry.

Good News:
I had Jerry look through my dying rustic hive and he agreed with me that there are no signs of a brood disease. It's so helpful to have experienced eyes looking at the comb with me. He pointed out "entombed pollen" on some of the comb. I'd seen it before but did not know what it was called or what it was. The girls decide for some reason that the pollen in that cell is no good and they wax it over. Interesting to me that they wouldn't just remove it. They must know what they are doing.

Really Good News:
I was showing off my Sun Barrel Hive to Jerry and we determined that they are building some very nice, very white, very straight comb. Right where I wanted them too. I removed the comb stabilizers from the bars in the hive. they are a bit small (just a touch) and they were pulling the tops of the bars together. I'll adjust them and put them back on or maybe I won't worry about it. They seem to be fine without the stabilizers. We also noticed what looked like a pile of salt on the hive floor under the cluster. When we picked some up it was wax flakes. They must have been producing so much wax that they dropped some. The comb they had built was also packed with honey. I did not see any eggs but I didn't remove any bees to really look either. Once I do, I'll remove the queen "includer". I'm very happy about how this hive is working out.

view from below

with stabilizers on

from above (showing comb)

from the front (showing comb)

Sun Barrel Hive swarm install update

I peaked in the hive after work tonight to see how they were. Looked good. They were clustered on the top and on the bars. I'm a bit worried that they'll start building comb from the lid instead of from my bars. I guess I'll watch for a day or two to see what they do. Quite often ideas that are brilliant in my own head are less than impressive to the bees.

I put a queen "includer" over the entrance hole to hopefully prevent them from absconding. There are a few other bee size holes in the hive that I plugged up for now. The hive still has the smell of the wax/oil/turpentine finish that I put on it a week or so ago. I hope the smell doesn't drive them away.
The nasty weather today (and predicted for the next couple of days) should keep them inside and hopefully building comb (and building it where I want it).

Apricot Tree Swarm - Sun Barrel Hive

I got a swarm call today. I was just leaving work for lunch so I drove out to catch them.

They were hanging in an apricot tree about 4 feet from the ground. I placed the basket under them on a sheet. I pruned a few small branches out of the way. I couldn't find a way to really shake the main branch they were on so I ended up kicking it. That worked. Video here.

Most of them dropped right in the basket. The force of the kick sent a little less than half of them beyond the basket and onto the sheet. I ended up shaking the sheet into the basket.

The fliers all returned to the tree. I kicked them off several times but they kept going back. The fanning bees in the basket made no difference. The wind was pretty strong. I think it must  have been blowing the nasanov away. In the end I cut about 10 inches of the main branch off and shook them directly into the basket. With no branch to return to, they all found the basket.

I took them home and installed them in my new barrel hive. I think I'll call it the sun barrel. It's modeled after the sun hive that I've seen online quite a bit. Here's to hoping they like it and build where I want them too.

Notes:

1 - Attach  basket liner to bottom of basket to make it easier to shake bees out without loosing the liner.

2 - Fix barrel hive lid so it doesn't squish bees when I close it.

3 - Find a way to keep comb guides erect. They are easy to tip over and I'm worried about the weight of the bees making them topple. Once the combs are complete the weight will be centered and I'm sure it will be fine, Until then they might be too top heavy.

Don't burn the damn house down!

Some of the best safety advise you will ever here: "Don't be stupid!"

Living by those three words will help keep you safe and out of trouble.

The following is a story of one of the many times in my life where I forgot to "Don't be stupid!".

I have quite liked this new sealant I've been putting on my hives.
It's my first season doing it so I don't know how long it will last before it needs reapplied but I think it will be a while.

Like water off a duck!

It makes the wood look beautiful.  And the water runs off like magic. I can't help but think it will last a long time.

Recipe:
1 part boiled linseed oil (I buy it raw and boil it myself)
1 part melted beeswax
1 part turpentine

I boil the oil and melt the wax at the same time (never sure how long to boil the oil to be able to call it boiled?), Once I decide is it boiled (or just when I get bored waiting), I turn the heat off and add the turpentine. I then poor the mixture into a can or metal container and set it somewhere to cool. It cools into a paste that can then be rubbed into the wood with a cloth****. When it dries, the wood looks great and feels waxy.

****Oils in cloths will self combust. Use care and put used cloths in an appropriate metal container (or just burn them).

This last time I made the finish I decided to apply it while it was still liquid so I could just paint it on with a paint brush. I had made some hives with some rough cut western red cedar and applying with a cloth was difficult.

I boiled the oil. I melted the wax. I left the heat on low to keep it warm and I added the turpentine.
Boiling oil, even with wax, doesn't really boil. Not like a rolling boil. Not like water. It just gets hot.
The turpentine added to the boiling oil/wax boiled like crazy. The fumes coming off the top eventually contacted the flame and poof. Burning oil fire!

I had cleared a huge area in the middle of the garage. I was wearing my safety glasses. I thought I was prepared. I thought I was being safe. I thought wrong. Instantly the garage starts filling up with thick black smoke. I had the back door open and the garage door cracked for ventilation but not enough to let the smoke out. Also the flames were licking the rafters! This was one of those "Oh F*?@, what now?!" moments. I actually said that out loud. I quicky looked around as I tried to decide what to do. My leather gloves were right there. I was tempted to pick it up with the gloves and take it out back to just let it burn.  The thought of boiling (and burning)  oil splashing all over me (and the garage) quickly changed my mind. Lid! Lid! where is my lid!? Old pot - no lid. I did the next best thing and put a board over the pot and held it down for a fewseconds. Instantly put the fire out. I turned off the burner before lifting the board off the pot (half expecting it to reignite. It did not. Whew! It took a while to get the heart rate back to normal. Lesson learned I think (I hope).

Here is a picture of the board I used to smother the fire. I might frame it. It kind of looks cool. Not cool enough to risk the house again, but still cool.

I still painted the hives with a paint brush until the mixture started to set. I then was able to put a very low flame under it to keep it liquid (with no fumes). I'm pretty sure it was the fumes from the boiling turpentine that caused the initial ignition. Scary!

Live and learn.

eggs - no eggs - split

Checked on the small swarm colony today and found the queen. She's light with dark bands (her thorax is visible in the bottom left quadrant of this picture). She's been busy laying eggs and the girls have been busy building comb.

i checked on the tree cutout colony today also. No sign of queen. No eggs. I pulled a couple frames of eggs from the house cutout hive. We'll see what they do.

I checked on the house coutout hive today also. Huge colony. Brood everywhere!!! I added 2 medium supers with starter comb.

checked on the hive at brents. they were very busy at the entrance. Several drones. they had built and capped 2 frames of honey in the 3rd box (above the queen excluder). I removed the excluder and added a 4th super. Very calm bees. did not inspect nest.

split the hive at rosiers. brought queen and open brood and honey/pollen in a new box to my house. was not a lot of open brood or eggs.

Left all capped brood (quite a bit actually) and some eggs in the existing location. i'll check on them in a week.

Small Swarm - Deers don't eat bees!

Got a call from my uncle Brent the other day (5-23-13). His wife, Sandy, was visiting a couple that had a small swarm in one of their trees. He was wondering if I was interested. Free bees! Yes please!

He called me back with the address and I took a bit of a long break from work to go catch them.

small swarm

They were hanging about 2 feet off the ground in a small lilac bush. There were quite a few dead bees on the lawn underneath the swarm. The lady living there told me that the swarm had been there for several days and that her husband had been spraying them with deer repellant until she stopped him. What the!? I guess I should be glad that the deer didn't eat them. Or glad that he didn't have a can of raid.

Well he may have killed some but there were still enough to make it worth catching.  I spread out a sheet on the lawn under the bush, set the hive directly under them and gave them a little bump. They all dropped into the hive. A minute or two later, about half of them were back on the branch. I knocked them down again. Back to the branch. The third time I actually pruned that bit of the branch and dropped it into the hive with them. Success!

Hey Sandy, aren't you afraid of bees? :-)

All gathering in

fanning nasanov - "This is the place!"

I closed up most of the top of the hive and they all moved in.

I waited about 5 minutes and closed it the rest of the way up and took them home.

It's a small swarm but it's early enough in the year, I think they'll do fine.

Rosier inspection

I peaked through the rosier tbh this afternoon.
lots of bees.
Showing the first signs of swarming
• queen cups (though all were empty)
• tons of capped brood
• starting to backfill the brood area (though I still found eggs)

I figure if I don't split them in the next 2 weeks, they'll split themselves and swarm.
I did see the queen and her wings looked a bit ragged on the ends.

Patterson split

I went to the Patterson farm to split that hive. He is going to purchase a TBH from me (including half of the split - with the queen).

Upon going through the hive, I found lots of capped brood and lots of eggs, but no uncapped brood. It took me a while to figure out what had happened. We did find the queen. We also found empty queen cups and 1 queen cell that was hatched. I figured they swarmed a little over a week ago. She had quit laying (no open brood). The new queen has already mated and is laying.

There were still enough bees to split so I divided up the assets.
I put the queen, a little capped brood, a bar of eggs, some pollen and most of the honey in the old hive and put it in a new location. I left a bar of eggs, a little honey,a bunch of pollen and the rest of the capped brood in the old location.

I'll check on them in a week to see how they are adjusting. I expect to find larva in the old hive (new location) and queen cells in the new hive (old location).

cut out (house) follow up

I opened the hive today at lunch. Didn't see the queen but found lots of eggs and brood. They have built a lot of comb and reattached the cutout comb. They have removed most of the string I had used to tie in the cutout combs. Lots and lots of bees. I need to add supers.

Huge Bee Tree Cutout (attempt 3)

Ok we've been working on this tree for a year now.

http://deweysbees.blogspot.com/2012/05/huge-bee-tree.html

History: At first we tried to trap out the bees.

story here

We came back in a week and the bees had chewed a hole through the spray foam to create another entrance to the main colony (see below pic).

We decided trapping them out was not going to work and we'd need to cut them out.
We removed the dead bit in front to reveal the colony. It was about eye level inside the cavity and went up above where we could see (though we couldn't tell how far).

View from in front of entrance

We removed as much comb as we could. Much of it brood comb. We cut the comb and tied it into frames.

View from inside tree - under colony

Note the curve of the comb (about 2 foot across)

brood comb tied in

after partial comb removal

colony with partial comb removed.

This process took quite a bit of time and we had a late start so it got dark on us. We decided to finish tomorrow. We left the brood comb in a box as the base of the tree. We never did see the queen.

The next day we found that the nurse bees that had been in the box had abandoned it and moved back into the tree. Any honey that was tied in the brood comb boxes was robbed out and the brood there abandoned.

We left it alone to come back another day.

We ended up never getting back to it last summer so I went back in November to make sure they were protected from the winter wind by nailing boards up over the huge entrance. They had rebuilt entirely and surprisingly this time the comb was perfectly straight instead of curved as before.

Note the straight comb.

Yesterday we decided to give it another go.

We removed the boards. The colony was huge. The comb covered with bees until we smoked it.

From the entrance

From beneath (note the queen cell)

This time we used a bee vac to remove the girls from the comb before we cut it out. This worked pretty good. They were still surprisingly gentle girls. The comb extends above the entrance about a foot. We tried to use a long skinny piece of wood fixed with a screw to cut it off at the top. The idea was that the skinny wood would fit up between the combs (and it did). It could then be rotated 90 degrees to twist the screw into the comb and then used as a knife to cut the comb at the top. It sounded great in theory but in the end it didn't work. It squished a lot of bees going up between the combs and didn't do a good job of comb cutting. We ended up getting a hold of the comb as best we could and pulling it down while rocking it side to side. This broke it off up above somewhere and we were able to pull it down and remove it. Most of the comb had to be cut in half in order to rotate it to fit it out the entrance.

We vacuumed each comb off as we removed it and stacked all comb on a working table. Paul is pretty sure he saw the queen just as she went into the vacuum tube.

We ended up finding many queen cells - some hatched. I'm pretty sure this colony had already swarmed for several reasons. 1 - the presence of hatched queen cells. Usually the mother queen tries to be gone before any of the daughter queens hatch. 2 - the completely back filled brood area. There was not an open brood cell anywhere in the hive. Plenty of capped brood but none open. The first queen cell we found was in an unusual place. right in the middle of a comb of pollen. The location suggests supercedure cell. But there were many many queen cells on the bottom of comb also suggesting swarm cells. Hmmmm?

Pollen

Queen cell in pollen - supercedure?

Queen cells on comb bottom - swarm?

Queen cell cluster from below

Many hatched - many still capped.

The first queen cell we removed was from the pollen. It had not hatched so we set it aside to deal with later. The second queen cell we removed was from the bottom/side of the comb and hatched out in Paul's hand as we removed it. We caught here and put her into a queen cage. We checked the first cell and found it had hatched also (in the 2 minutes it was sitting there) and she was crawling around on the empty cell. We caged her also. We removed quite a few more capped queen cells that we've placed in nucs to try to keep alive. We'll use any that hatch for splits.

WE removed all the comb we could reach, vacuumed as many bees from the tree as we could and called it a night.

We ended up with about 5-6 lbs of bees that we split into 2 boxes. Each box with a hatched virgin queen in a cage and brood and pollen/honey.

As much comb removed as we could reach

left - comb removed last year

right - comb removed this year and not tied in