Honey Bees in Central Florida

It’s not over yet

2009-05-17T23:05:00.004-04:00

It’s been a good start to the year but the honey season is far from over. Here is my bee yard, from left to right my Top Bar hive…
I’m in complete awe on the progress this colony is showing, can it have something to do with the type of beehive?? There are too many variables to really make a call. What I do know is that I provided 3 partially drawn out frames to the TBH and they have, in 2 weeks, pulled 5 more. I didn’t forget to remove the queen’s shipping cage this time, and I removed it causing minimum damage. I do need to be more careful about lifting the top off. It had glued itself to a few bars and when I lifted the top a few bars also lifted. Luckily there was no damage done to anything. Below are a couple of the new Top bars.

Next to it is my original hive. These guys started it all. Last time I looked in here I notice a lack of stored honey. Until this weekend I was a little apprehensive. I almost pulled my back removing the bottom super. The top is about 75% full and 50% of that is capped. I hope it can wait two weeks until I return from vacation. Here is the outside frame of the top super.

Next to my original hive is one of my NUCs from last year. One of the supers I robbed last week came from them. There’s not much activity going on in the current super. Palmetto and Palms flow is about to begin so maybe then it will pick up. No second super for them since they haven’t touched the one they have now.

Next we have the new Nuc of the year. I’m not feeding them but I decided to leave the feeder to block the entrance some. I want to keep these gals small and in the NUC for the rest of the year. They right now hold my emergency queen. If anything happens in the established hives these gals with their queen will step in. I like to take pictures while inspecting to catch and review what I may not see. I was worrying about not seeing any eggs in the Nuc. The pictures proved me wrong. There are plenty of eggs in 3 frames, it’s just hard to see with all the bees over them.

Finally my ex-angry hive with a whole new hard working pleasant attitude. No idea why they like to hang out as much as they do. The bottom super is 75% full, and the top super I placed on today. It’s one of the supers I extracted last week. Maybe this will give all the slackers hanging around some work to do. I’m hoping to have 2, maybe 3 supers to extract in a couple of weeks.

Oh yeah, I didn’t get stung stealing honey supers, but I got stung replacing empty supers. I’m glad the reactions are getting milder and milder.

First Honey Harvest of 2009

2009-05-17T22:33:00.003-04:00

How much honey do two supers/twenty frames hold??? I was able to fill Thirty-four 12 ounce containers and seventeen 6 ounce containers, plus about 10 ounces of my personal jar for an approximate total of 515 ounces.
The 5 gallon bucket in the picture below was about 7/8 full, and holding the bucket on my home scale added 45 lbs to my body weight.

It took me several days to bottle all the honey. I need to revisit my choice for a spout. I didn’t feel like paying shipping for a honey spout and thought a regular spout would do the trick. It took just about 10 minutes to fill the 12 ounce jars, and the flow out of the bucket slowed down as the level dropped.

Time To Get The Honey

2009-05-13T22:48:00.007-04:00

There is nothing more fun than having to put on a jacket and a veil and then starting up a fire in the smoker when the temperature in the shade is in the mid 80’s.

From left to right: Yours truly wearing my jacket and veil. The TBH (Top Bar Hive), Old Faithfull (My original hive), my eager hive (NUC from last year), my NUC (from this year), and my Mean hive with a whole improved attitude ( NUC from last year).Below are a few easy steps to rob honey from a beehive. Required tools: Bee Quick, cloth material (two pieces), inner cover, and a bee brush. Step one, remove and place out-of-the-way the super to be robbed. Step two, place the inner cover on top of the hive and then place the super on top of the inner cover. Step three, spray a cloth with Bee Quick on top of the super and put a hive cover on.

Wait about a minute or two and then remove the super. The smell of Bee Quick will drive a large number of bees out of the super and onto the inner cover. The inner cover will prevent the main body of the hive from being accidentally effected.

Place the super on top of the second piece of cloth, also sprayed with Bee quick. This will drive the rest of the bees out of the super.

Take the super 10 to 20 feet away from the hive and brush off all the bees hanging on it. Aside for a few stubborn bees the super will now be empty of them, and the bees you just brushed off will fly back to the hive.

I would prefer to rob the supers in a more natural way by using bee cones or Bee escapes. These methods take a day for the bees to naturally exit the super. I decided against this because it would give the Small hive beetles complete freedom to runaround in the honey and have a one day gorging feast.

Once in the garage I armed myself with the shop-vac to vacuum up any bees that may have still been in the super box. I cut the honey combs off the frames, dropped it into my nice clean honey cooler and crushed it. I retuned the super minus the honey back out to the bee yard for cleaning. Below is a picture of twenty (two supers) crushed frames.

Since this is a crush and strain method, it was then time to strain. The reason why I selected this cooler was for its nice draining spout. Below is a picture of the cooler draining into a five gallon bucket with two filters, a coarse filter over a fine filter.

TBH Package Follow Up

2009-05-11T21:33:00.006-04:00

An inspection to confirm that the queen was release from her shipping cage (click for picture) must be done four to five days after installing a package, whether it is in a Langstroth hive or in a Top bar hive. On Sunday, six days post package installation; I found time to look in on the two new packages, one in the TBH and the other in a regular Langstroth Nuc. Below is a side view of my TBH.

I gave the colony a great kick start by providing it with 3 partially drawn out top bars. Not only did the colony repair and expand the 3 bars I gave them, but they have already drawn out a fourth one. Below is my 1st picture ever of the inside of the hive. To get a better idea of the internal view, tilt your head slightly to the left until the hardware cloth on the bottom of the picture becomes the horizon.

Brood is capped approximately four days after the eggs are laid. Since it takes 3 to 4 days for the queen to be release, there won’t be any capped brood six days after the package is installed. Not even if the queen began laying the minute she was release from her cage. It was hard to get a picture of any hatched eggs or eggs with all the bees hard at work on the honeycomb.

I gently slid the bars from back to front using a box cutter knife to unglue the bars. Many beekeepers claim to use a lot less smoke in Top bar hives, I did use a lot less smoke with this colony, but they are hardly up to full strength and hardly have anything to protect. My guess is that is too early to make a call either way on that myth. Once I made my way to the 3rd bar where I hung the queen’s cage, I gently and nervously pulled the bar out. I needed to remove the queens cage, but I was very apprehensive about dealing with new honey comb wax with no support what so ever. Unfortunately I didn’t catch a good picture of it.

Below is my Top bar hive without its top after my 1st inspection. I’m very pleased with the end result of the design, the paint job colors, the incredible progress of the colony after only a week, and …………….. Wait a freaking minute!!!!!!!! What’s that on the 3rd bar from right to left?? Did I forget to remove the queen’s cage? But I removed the top bar; I have an out of focus picture to prove it!!!!!!! DO’H !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By next weekend when I do an inspection to see if there is capped brood, that cage is going to be permanently part of the honeycomb in that top bar.

TBH Package installation

2009-05-10T22:03:00.008-04:00

Thank you to TyraTech and Jason who paid for one of my packages in exchange for allowing them to collect a hundred or so bees. Wouldn’t you know it? My two packages arrived last Monday just about a week early. I arrived home from work after the Post Office had close, but I decided to call them to find out how early they open in the morning. I was thrilled when they told me I could knock at the back door and pick them up. Two buzzing boxes of bees really freak people out.

I was completely unprepared since the packages were not suppose to arrive for another week, but I made do and put together what I needed to install the packages that late afternoon. All you really need to install a package is a spray bottle with sugar water (1:1). The first step is to profusely spray the bees inside the box. Tap the box on the ground to drop the bees to the bottom of the box. Spray them some more, pry the syrup can cover, spray them some and tap the box on the ground once again. When pulling the syrup can out along with the queen cage, it is not a bad idea to spray and tap the box one last time. It is a good idea to keep the can cover handy to close the hole after pulling the queen cage out.

Inspect the queen and confirm she is alive and looks healthy/active. Then MAKE absolutely sure to remove the cork on the candy end of the cage. Place her in the hive using the metal tab to dangle her from one of the top bars. I chose to place her between the 3rd and 4th bar

I placed one inch starter strips on all my Top bars, but I also outsourced (the current American way) some honey comb construction to my other hives. I removed one of the outside frames that had not been worked on from their Suppers, I slid all the frames out, and placed one top bar right in the middle of the supper for a total of four days. Below is one out of three bars with the results of the four days of work.

Although we are currently in a dry spell, the nectar flow is on. Some 10 ounce of sugar water and the remaining contents of the package’s feeder can is not going to hurt.

Now prepare the hive by removing enough bars to make a large opening in which all the bees can be dumped inside the hive. Before dumping the package spray them some more. The busier the bees are cleaning themselves the less likely they will fly out as you dump them in.

The picture below shows my TBH with the bars back in place. The metal tap to the right (front of hive) is the where I placed the queen’s cage, and to the left (back of hive) you can see the top of the feeder bottle.
Now leave them alone for at least 4 to 5 days

Wax Melter

2009-04-19T21:15:00.003-04:00

WARNING: Wear garden gloves or use heat pads. The Temperature inside the box will exceed 130F after an hour of sitting undisturbed in the sun. It’s hot enough to burn your finger tips if you touch the baking pan. Trust me, I know for a fact.
Key components:

I chose a 13x9x2 baking pan to hold the wax to be melted $ 7.50
A bread loaf pan to catch the melted wax $4.50
Wood to build a box $6.00
22x16 Pane of glass $6.50
Optional candy thermometer $2.50

It is not a bad idea to take the new purchased pans into the kitchen and swap them for an older set. You will need to make a wooden box big enough to accommodate the pans; the larger pan must drip into the smaller pan. Then make a frame for the pane of glass and seal it all with some door and window caulking.

Here is the box sitting in the sun. The dark lines along the seams of the box are door and window calking.
I made a bed on my holding pan with hardware cloth to filter larger pieces of wire out of the starter strips and whatever else may be in the wax. It also holds the wax off the pan so that heat can reflect off it.

The old wax from brood frames is not a good wax to try and melt. It’s not only ugly but it never melts enough to flow out of the top pan. I had mixed wax from old brood frames that were replaced, and wax left from the crush and strain process obtained while robbing honey.

Below is the result of my 1st solar wax melter trial. The stalactites of wax were formed because the sun went down before the wax in the holding pan had dripped down.

A few more hours the following day did the trick. Notice in the picture how one side of the wax is thicker than the other. The pan in the melter is not level. Allow the pan of wax to cool down over night. Once the loaf of wax is cool, place the pan and wax for five minute in the freezer. Remove and immediately twist the pan to remove the block of wax out of the pan.

This block of wax has really not been properly filtered out of impurities. Some people choose water in the collection pan. The wax sinks and the impurities float, therefore separating the two. Others use paper towels or coffee filters as a filter medium. I decided to use an old pair of panty hose. Below is my block of wax in the panty hose melting once again in the solar wax melter.

The weekend was clear, sunny and high of 82. The solar wax melter reached a temperature of 90 within 10 minutes, and within the hour the temperature inside the box had reached 130 Fahrenheit. That was hot enough for the wax to begin flowing down

Time for candles?

2009-04-11T16:41:00.005-04:00

It has been three consecutive weeks of inspecting hives. The first week was a search for the old queens, killing them, and then introducing new ones. The following week I opened them to remove the queen cages, at which point, I decided it would be a good idea to leave them alone for a few weeks. After speaking with Mike and reading his blog I decided maybe it would be a good idea to see if my new queens were laying eggs or had been replaced like his. Just in case things were fine, I decided that it would be a good time to super the last two hives. Here are my last two supers, one has wooden frames with starter strip, and the second has hollowed out plastic frames.
With all the practice I’m getting good at planning and carrying out the inspections. Below is a picture of the back of the hives, my saw horses with a board to close the bottom of the super when it’s place on top of it, and a sheet of plexy glass to close the top of the super. I don’t have to deal with all the bees in whatever box is placed here. On the floor are my two new supers (and last) for the two hives on the left. I like to light my smoker (hanging on the left hive) and smoke the hive that is to be inspected and then wait a minute or two. While I’m waiting I arrange all my tools and aids to make sure I have everything I could possibly use. After the wait, I give the 1st hive another puff of smoke and I also smoke the next hive to be inspected.

I began the day by inspecting the middle hive (The Eager colony). I took the super off, placed it on my saw horses and closed it up. I removed one of the outer frames to create more room to inspect the other frames. My main goal today was to look for brood in the middle frames. Below is the outer most frame; the hollowed out plastics frames look great. The bees build whatever size they desire and things are a little more natural.

After removing the outer frame and sliding a few frames out, I pulled one of the middle brood frames. No queen cells and some uncapped brood. Uncapped brood means the egg in that particular cell was laid 4 to 8 days ago. Since the new queen was installed over 14 days ago, the uncapped cells are from the new queen, and since this frame had no eggs the day I killed the old queen….All this is work of the new queen.

Below is the flip side of the frame above. A lot more uncapped brood can be seen towards the right on this side of the frame. That was enough to convince me, the new queen was accepted.

Now I placed the super back on and took a quick look at the future honey crop. Below is one of the outside frames. It is not fully drawn out yet and has very little honey in it.

Below is another medium frame from the same super. This one is pretty much fully drawn out, has tons of uncapped honey, and a few capped drone cells.

And finally a frame full of uncapped honey. How can you tell it is full of honey? Well, aside from zooming in and seeing the syrup in the frames, notice the color difference of the wax between this frame and the pure white color of clean empty cells.

This hive was definitely ready for a new super.

Next I moved over to inspect my Angry hive. These ladies are going to drive me nuts the way they draw out comb. It is like there are two comb building groups that usually begin working at opposite ends of a frame, and by the time they meet in the middle they are always off center. I began inspecting on the super with this one. Below is a super frame, and notice towards the left how that side comes out allowing the right side to slide behind it.

Here is one of the outside frames from the deep brood box. Notice how the comb has the same overlapping problem as the super frame above. Also, as in the previous hive, the outside frames have drone cells.

Here is one of the brood frames, the main reason for opening the hives. There is tons of capped brood with a few un-hatched eggs and brood under four days old. There is more on the opposite side but I forgot to photograph it.

I left my original hive alone today; I’ll look in it next week. I feel better after observing that everything is normal and no one seems to be planning or preparing to swarm. Here is my Apiary today. All the hives have two supers now; my TBH on the left still sits empty waiting for the 3lb package due early May. My smoker is on the background cooling off sitting on top of the bird bath.

It was a good inspection day and I need to begin preparing/planning to rob, extract, and process honey. I did have on issue today. I began my inspections wearing my mechanic gloves. I was hoping for equal protection and better handling. I was wrong on the protection part. I need to up the sting count by one, I got it good on my right hand.

Let Nature Do Its Thing

2009-04-05T23:29:00.006-04:00

This weekend was my first inspection since I requeened ten days ago. The offspring’s of the new queens will be emerging in about 20 days, that assumes it took 3 or 4 days to release her from the cage and maybe an additional day for them to begin to laying eggs. It would be a safe bet to assume the hives attitude change should begin in about a month, and a total of 2 to 2 ½ months for all the bees in the hives to be offspring’s of the new queens.
I began my inspection with the weak NUC, sad to say, it was too weak and it didn’t make it. The traffic in and out of it was from all the bees robbing it of its resources.
I moved on to “Old Faithfull”. The picture below is of the top of the second super. The nine frames of this supper will most likely be ready to rob in 2 weeks.

The new queen was released and it moved right into the deep box. I found a small problem with the TBH bars I placed as a replacement of the two frames I removed to make room for the queen’s cage. The bees began working the comb from the bottom up, instead of working from the top down. The two TBH frames I had hoped to be drawn out were not touched at all. Instead I had to remove large pieces of cells from the bottom to make room for reinserting the frames. Weird, I though bees worked comb from the top down. The word disappointment doesn’t describe how I felt when I though none of the TBH (top bar hive) frames were worked on. I though it was a solid idea.I moved to the next hive, the Eager colony. The queen was released and to my surprise these ladies did work on my TBH bar that I left in here. Pictures below are worth a thousand words. I placed the queen’s cage (face down) over the top of the frames of the deep body.

I put the super back on minus one frame. The frame that would have sat on top of the cage and would have been pushed out. In its place I took one of my TBH bars so that today I would get a drawn out frame for the package being installed in the TBH (Early May)
Here is the adjacent frame in the super. It is a great picture to learn the differences between capped honey and capped brood. The capped honey is light in color and flat across the surface. Capped brood is darker and the individual cell caps are distinguishable from one to the other. To the left are also hatch eggs about 4 to 6 days old. They are probably the first eggs laid by the new queen before moving down to the deep body.

How can I tell the queen moved down? Simple, the frame above shows it being backfilled with honey. The workers have filled the cells below the capped brood with honey, and since the flip side is full (picture below) along with all the adjacent frames, there is no other place to lay but below in the deep. This super will probably be ready to rob in 20 days.

Finally time for my mean hive, I decided to leave them for last, since more bees from this hive will follow me through out the inspection of all the hives. When you inspect a hive a couple of mad bees from the first will be buzzing you as you inspect the adjacent hive. During the inspection of the second hive some mad bees will join the mad bees from the first hive, and by the time I’m done with the third hive I have quite the following going. Now I’m talking about 4 bees from each hive, tops.

So I open my Mean hive in which I put two TBH bars, and to my delight two drawn out TBH bars came out with the top.

I left all the drawn out frames (3) out on the yard to be cleaned. I don’t want to put cells with honey into the TBH to attract other critters before I install a package.

Now, unlike the super frames from previous hive (see nice super frame above) the bees in this hive don’t seem to like my starter strip too much. They drew out my TBH bar nicely, but the adjacent frame was completely off.

I did some minor trimming in an attempt to correct things, and gently shook the bees off the TBH bars in top of the hive. They very nicely just walked right in. OK, who are these nice bees and what have they done with my mean hive???

Hoping for Good Results

2009-03-31T00:20:00.005-04:00

After the hives were re-queened Thursday, I had some out of town things to take care of until Sunday. I needed to pick up some things around the bee yard that I left lying around. If the new queens are accepted I may have to change names for the hives. I have been toying with herb names for a while. I am big fan of herbs and I grow them all the time.My new NUC sitting on top of the TBH is a split from “Old Faithfull”, my original hive. I’m not sure if it has a queen, but it has a frame to make one and plenty of resources. I also did something in the NUC and all the hives that I think I'm pretty smart for having had thought of it. I put them all to work drawing out 4 total bars from the TBH hive. The bees for it are due to arrive early May. The drawn out frames would be a great head start for the package. So the NUC is composed of one frame of eggs (only one I found in “Old Faithful “) to make a queen if there is no queen, and medium frame of honey, a frame of pollen and honey, one new never used plastic frame, and one Bar from the TBH. From the outside the NUC looks promising.

In my other 3 hives I placed the new queen cage face down over the top of frames containing capped brood. How did I manage to make the cage fit?? Simple, I took one or two frames from the supper above and replaced them with bars from the TBH. They have no bottom bar so the cage doesn’t get in the way, and the bees should begin to draw them out. As soon as I have time and the weather cooperates, I will open the hives to inspect for newly laid eggs from my new queens and at the same time retrieve the TBH bars to replace them with regular frames.

Here is “Old Faithfull”. I removed two deep frames and one medium frame to create the NUC above. The bees should be working on one TBH bar and

my eager NUC and new queen are working on two TBH bars. The colony also moved the brood frames completely up to the supper.

My Angry hive has a new queen and are working on two TBH bars. The colony has a great laying pattern but is also laying a lot of drones. They are useless resource sucking male bees.

I’m torn between inspecting to look at the new queens or letting them be until the weekend. I think I’ll let the weather decide. We are supposed to get more rain in the next few days.

How to Re-Queen a Beehive

2009-03-30T22:52:00.006-04:00

If you are looking for the best advice on how to re-queen a beehive, I suggest you keep looking because you are not going to find it here.

Reasons to re queen a hive:

Older queens are more prone to swarming
Replacing a failing queen
Better stock traits like pest and disease resistances
And in my case, improving bad attitudes

So how do you get new queen bees? There are a few suppliers online; I chose to use Gabees.com mainly due to its proximity to my location

How are queen bees shipped to the beekeeper? Well see for yourselves below. I had to pay extra for the overnight delivery because I needed to run out of town for a few days. Here is the envelope that arrived last Thursday.
Below are the contents of the envelope. On the left 3 marked queens (mine) and on the right five marked and clipped wing queens(Mike's).
What is a marked and clipped queen? See the bright spot on the picture below. That’s the queen with a painted dot on her thorax. It makes it easier to spot her next time I’m looking for her in the hive. A Clipped queen is a queen that had one or two of its wings clipped off. It doesn’t prevent her and the hive from attempting to swarm away, it just prevents her from getting very far. Since the workers won’t leave her behind, the swarm is usually found in a cluster on the floor right outside the hive, making it easy to collect and re-hive somewhere new.

One of the few tips to re-queen is to not use a lot of smoke. Well, when the hive has an attitude smoke is your friend. Best advice I can give anyone, is to have a second set of eyes. I asked Mike from Mike’s farm to come over and be my second set of eyes. We had to completely dismantle 2 out of the 3 hives to find two of the queens. Below is a picture of Mike inspecting one of the frames. Notice the body below is lacking any frames at that point.

My strategy was to have spare hive bodies, and inspect frame by frame for the queen. The 1st queen we didn’t find until every frame was out. Mike eventually spotted her on the bottom of the hive stand. She was making a run for the underside. The second we completely dismantle and couldn’t find her on the stand once all the frames were out. To make sure she wasn’t there I took the hive body some 20 feet away, shook all the bees off, and returned to the location. I figured if she was in there hiding, all the bees should be able to fly back, but not her. Laying queens can’t fly; it takes them days to slim down into shape to fly. By then she surely would have died before being able to return to the hive. The draw back of shaking all the bees out is then you have tons of bees fling around highly upset at the world. As we were putting the hive back together, Mike caught sight of her on one of the frames. We missed her on the way out.The queen in the 3rd hive we couldn’t find. We also couldn’t find but one frame of eggs. This is a strong hive and I had decided to create a week split. I’m hoping the queen went in the weak split or she was missing in action all together for what ever reason.

News from the Week

2009-03-22T21:02:00.003-04:00

All the Beekeeping Forums, clubs, and newsletters are a BUZZ with the news out of the White House. NO!!! The economy has not turned around yet. The big news has to do with the new garden and beehives been set up at the White House. “The 1,100-square-foot garden will include 55 kinds of vegetables, including peppers, spinach and, yes, arugula. (The selection is a wish list put together by White House chefs.) There will also be berries, herbs and two hives for honey that will be tended by a White House carpenter who is also a beekeeper.” (Read more in the Washington Post)

Meanwhile locally the flow has definitely been set in motion. The bees are working the orange tree blossoms, and the trees will probably blooming for the next month. The few intermittent showers all weekend have most likely been an improvement to the flow.

Some pictures from the blooms on my citrus trees.

Mites and SHB update

2009-03-19T23:45:00.005-04:00

Last weekend during my inspection I removed the traps my bee inspector gave me. He helped me with the Small hive beetle problem by providing me with baited traps for each hive, made by Bee excellent (local beekeeper that seems not to have anything online). The trap is a variation of the trap build by Fatbeeman (catch his video in this previous post).

I also removed comb cells that the bees usually build at the bottom of the frames in the deep body. Since it is natural comb, most of the drone cells are located here.

Below are the three traps and some of the brood cells. They have been in my freezer since the inspection. The freezing will kill all the critters. Unfortunately, it kills bad critters and the bees, but sacrificing drones is a good way to inspect and remove mites. The mites prefer to nest and reproduce in drone cells. If you get a chance to perform a similar inspection, make sure that you only remove enough cells that you can inspect with in a few minutes. They thaw out rather quickly and become rather juice and messy.

The SHB trap by BEE Excellent is the first trap that I have tried that sits on top of the frames. Up until now I have been trapping beetles in the inspection drawer of the hive bases. This year the SHB problem was borderline serious, but it is now under control. It's not gone but much better. The trap works well, its draw backs are that the hive needs to be open, the trap needs to be baited, and the bees close all the entrance holes. One of the traps was busting with Beetles the other 2 each had a couple. It could also be a little bigger, but it did its job as can be seen below in the pictures.

As far as mites, things could not look better. Only brood in two cells had Mites in them. The best way to open the cells is to break them in half over a white paper towel, and open by hand and empty what ever cells don’t break open. Below is a section of cells split open.

Below is the one of the undeveloped drones that I found with mites. This guy actually had 3 mites on him, the two mites seen here on its top.

and one under

Here is brood in different stages of development. The white ones that don't look like bees at all will turn into a mushy puddle of goo if you don't move them along fast. The one all the way on the right was the second infested mite I found. I’m very excited with the lack of mites. It means my natural methods may be working. I'm using powder sugar and tobacco leaves in the smoker. A new batch of tobacco is sprouting at this very moment.

THE 1st FLOW OF 2009 IS ON

2009-03-19T23:32:00.005-04:00

In my area anyway. I was sure everything was ready and waiting for the 1st rain shower, and the rain finally came two mornings ago. Nothing huge, but enough to trigger all the fruit blooms to open.

Here are my Mango blooms. It's the first time my Mango trees have ever bloomed.

And here is one of my citrus. My four citrus trees will be blooming at different times for the next month or so. I have never seen so many blooms on this fruit tree. If every flower develops into a fruit, I’m going to have to cut some off or it will snap the branches off.

High Bee Unemployment

2009-03-15T21:23:00.005-04:00

Sorry, I couldn’t help the pun associated to our current economy. I have been worrying all week about the high number of bees that have been bearding on Old Faithfull. Bearding is normal for a strong hive right before sunset as all the field bees' return for the day, but not normal at 10 in the morning. I have been worried that the hive is getting ready to swarm. I decided to do a thorough inspection on all the hives. I decided I was going to be equipped for anything and everything. Supers fully drawn out, swarm cells, and overcrowded hives.

I prepared two medium supers. I hollowed out the plastic frames, and had the bright idea of using the cut out plastic as starter strips in the wooden frames.

Here are the two supers. One has 10 hollowed out plastic frames, and one has wooden frames and plastic starter strips. I was prepared to use unpainted supers if the situation called for it.

Here is the whole array of tools I prepared. A Nuc to put frames with swarm cells to create an artificial swam. You take the frames with the queen cells and give them a frame of honey and pollen, shake some bees, feed it and close it for a few hrs. Some bees will return to the original hive, but enough should stay with the new Nuc. There are also two suppers with 10 frames a piece in case all the suppers were drawn out, a spray bottle with sugar water to spray the bees to keep the number of bees flying around down, saw horses to place supers off the ground, and my camera and hive tool.

I began inspecting with the hive in the middle, my Eager hive. I had a little incident while removing the super. One of the deep frames came up with the super as I was lifting it away. Then it cut loose half way out and landed on top of the hive. No major harm done except for all the mad bees in that frame were now flying around. I quickly sprayed them down and placed the supper back on. From what I saw of the brood frame that fell out, there was a good laying pattern. The bottom deep body is about 80% drawn out and the super is about 75% drawn out. I took the pictures below before closing the hive back up. I’m not too concerned about this hive swarming this year. Here is one of the newly drawn out empty super frames. Notice the nice white color of the wax.

Below is a frame out of the same super from my Eager hive, but this one they have begun to fill and the top has already been capped.

Next up for inspection to the right is Old Faithfull, this is the hive that began it all and has been here from day one. The small hive Beetle was surprisingly a little bad between the 1st and 2nd super. The top super has not been drawn out at all but there are tons of bees prepping the starter strips. Below is a picture of the top of the 1st super, the one adjacent to the deep brood box. The middle frames are partially now part of the brood that has expanded up into the supper, technically making the hive a 1.5 hive. Before the end of the summer the hive will move back down, and I can rob the honey from these frames.

Here is a picture of Old Faithfull with all of its supers removed, and the outer most frame out. Once one of outer most frames is removed, the other frames can slide out to allow for easier removal and inspection of the brood nest.

Below is your typical frame out of the brood nest. This is frame number four, plenty of capped brood for the most part, a few uncapped, and pollen stores. The pollen stores are surprisingly in the middle on both faces of the frame splitting the brood up. I have never noticed such a pattern before.

Finally all the way to the left, the Moody hive. These guys definitely need an attitude adjustment. There is no need to go deep into this hive. They have plenty of room to grow, especially now that I placed a super on, but their day is coming. The new queens should be here at the end of this month.

Mmmmmm, bee unemployment seems to have gotten worse in Old Faithfull after my inspection. I prepared for everything but encountered nothing. Not sure if that is good or bad. Swarm season is here and I get the feeling these guys are going to want to go.

At least my Moody hive is allowing me to sit at my bench with out harassing me. I have no clue how I’m going to find the queens among all those bees. Up the sting count, someone got me good in my right thigh through my jeans while inspecting Old faithful.

Assembling Beemax Hives

2009-03-15T20:28:00.004-04:00

Parts and tools (mallet and glue) to assemble a Beemax hive (Super in this case)

Insert the L brackets into body of hive. The frames sit on the L- brackets.

Align joints and tap with mallet until joints slip in about 1/4 of and inch. Apply a mild glue (elmers is a good choice) to joints. Tap down with mallet untill joints slip completely in.
Confirm that all emblems and writing are oriented in the same direction; it is possible to insert parts upside down. The clue of an upside down part is seen below. Notice how the hive edge is not aligned.

Two Beemax supers assemble in less than 5 minutes.

Two coats of paint will take a few days. What is Beemax made out of? Click here to find out

Look at the Sting Count Go

2009-03-11T23:37:00.005-04:00

March has not been good to me, three stings in the last two weeks. If bee stings are truly good arthritis treatment, then I'm going to be the most limber 80 year old. Luckily the more stings I get the less reaction my body experiences. They still hurt like "H" - "E" - double sticks. (For those of you with no kids that can’t speak “Spell language”, that means HELL) All three stings courtesy of my Moody hive. This hive is making me feel like a parent making excuses for a misbehaving child.
The Moody hive has been fed so it is not low on resources; it has plenty of capped and uncapped brood so its queen must be fine. Last I looked it had a Small hive Beetle problem but steps have been taken to control them. It is the only hive that I have not placed a super on because I was waiting for it to expand from its original Nuc size (5 frames) to the new ten frame body, but maybe it wants more space ?

This past weekend, after I took down a dead Oak on my property, I went over to the bee yard to relax and observe the ladies at work. Some people gaze at fish in tanks to relax and release stress, I look at my beehives. It hadn't been more than 2 minutes when two bees came after me and one stung me in my forearm. I was sitting down on my bench so I was not in their flight path, it was definitely an intentional assault. I have read in beekeeping literature how bees don’t like bad smells, I was still in my work clothes so maybe …………………….. No, no more excuses, time for some tough love. As all good parents should now and then, it is time to put my foot down. An order for 3 new queens from gabees.com has been place, and they should be here by the end of March. Since1 queen bee or 3 queen bees cost the same for shipping, might as well take care of all 3 hives, and begin the new year with new queens. If I play my cards right, changing the queens should set the hives back just a few days. No biggie!!!!

Spring flow should be here any week now. I have planned a full inspection for all the hives this weekend, I’ll get to use my new inspection Hat and jacket pull over.

Here is Old Faithfull, this group has a full supper that is partially being used for brood right now. What you see the bees doing in the picture is call bearding; everyone has an opinion on why they do it. It is completely normal event on a late afternoon for a good strong beehive.

This is my Eager hive.
And this is the Moody Hive.

Requeening made me think that my choice of names will be out dated; an attitude change for better or for worse is one of the main reasons to introduce a new queen.

Handy Thing to Know

2009-03-01T20:34:00.002-05:00

Why is honey measure by weight after 8 ounces?

A: I have no clue. My best guess is that it sounds more impressive to say 1lb of honey instead of saying 12 ounces.
Check my math and see for yourself
Specific Gravity of Honey (From http://wiki.answers.com/ ): Ratio of the mass of a substance to the mass of an equal volume of water.
The SG of good honey is 1.425, which means it's 42.5 percent denser than water. Since a liter of water weighs one kilogram, a liter of honey weighs 1.425 kg. Water weighs 8.34 pounds per gallon, so honey weighs 8.34 * 1.425 = 11.88 pounds per gallon of Honey.
so:
128 ounces in 11.88 lbs = 8 ounces in 0.7425 lbs therefore
12 ounces in 1.11375 lbs and 16 ounces in 1.485 lbs

Learn and Experience Something New

2009-03-01T19:26:00.006-05:00

The TBH (back out in the bee garden) and the Nuc sitting on top of it are waiting for my two bee packages to arrive in early May.

I had my annual state inspection this weekend. The state of Florida inspects every registered beekeeper for serious diseases that could be spread through out the area or state, and the inspectors are an incredible source of information.

This weekend, after seeing the state bee inspector in action, I finally learned what the hook on the smoker can be used for. Who knew!!!! It honestly never occurred to me and I had never seen anyone do it until now. I will never need to bend down to pick it up off the ground ever again.

During the inspection my last remaining hive without a name earned its name…the “Angry” hive. I had never experienced bees behaving like they did during the inspection. As the inspector put it, “these bees are angry”. It wasn’t that they came out to sting us, but they definitely were more aggressively coming up to get in our face and following us around for a longer time and distance. They seemed to be low on resources so my guess and optimist hope is that they were just very defensive of what little they have. Also, they seemed to have a worse Small hive beetle problem. The inspector gave me a small trap and bait to try and help with the beetle problem. I’m feeding the hives again (1:1 suagr water), and hopefully the bait and trap for beetles will help. I have worked with this hive lots of time, and this is not their normal behavior. Hopefully instead of angry they are just simply moody.

The Small hive Beetle problem seems better in the other hives. To stay on top of the problem I cleaned the inspection drawers in my stands, and re-baited them with lard. Below are my three inspection drawers dripping over a window screen. The round caps are baited with Crisco oil lard.

After scrapping and rinsing clean the drawers, I re-baited them and poured oil in them.
And the circle of life is not complete until the chickens get their feast of oily small hive beetles

Top Bar Hive Story (TBH)

2009-03-01T16:50:00.009-05:00

If you want to stand out among your neighbors you start keeping bees. If you want to stand out among beekeepers you do it on a TBH. The Top bar Hive has also become the hive of choice for most organic beekeepers. Here are my plans for my TBH, and below are some steps on how I build it, and background history of my TBH. First I should give credit where credit is due. The base for my plans came from http://www.biobees.com/ - Check them out, great site “about sustainable, chemical-free, small-scale, 'organic' beekeeping, using simple equipment that almost anyone can make at home.” Hey!!!!!! They are right; I did build it myself at home. Also, check out http://www.bwrangler.com/bee/index.html for information that leads me to my conclusions about what I think might work for me. Here’s what influenced my design:
· Florida beekeepers keep one deep brood in Florida - So a smaller TBH should work better here. I built the smaller 36” version and I modified the trapezoid dimensions to give me a volume slightly larger than a deep box hive.
· Hot and humid weather means more ventilation required – so I built a screen bottom.
· Small Hive Beetles control - Building inspection/ trap drawer
· How to provide support to it– Cover can slide back to allow placement of hollow top bar that gives access to a medium supper, deep body, or place a NUC above it to provide drawn out frames of pollen, honey, or brood from the Lang hives
· How it provides support to my Langs - The length measurements of the Top bars is the same as the length of a standard frames. Top bars will fit in standard Deep body hives.
My 1st Mod to the original design was to replace the peak roof to simple and flat. The split on the roof made it hard to seal for rain. I placed the hive out in the bee yard in the 2008 season. It quickly led to my second Mod which was my choice of color.
I was successful in introducing a colony by sliding back the top and replacing the 1st bar with a hollowed out bar that allowed access into a Nuc placed on top of the bars. Unfortunately my choice of a purchased Australian queen did not work out. The bees were particularly gentle and hard working. Gentle in this case proved that nice gals finish last. The colony hardly fought back against the Small hive beetle, and eventually the colony collapsed.

After the colony collapsed I brought the hive back in the shop for more changes. I replaced the gutter screen with 1/8 hardware cloth. I shortened the inspection drawer board and in its place to close the bottom I put 1/8 hardware cloth. I believe too many pests were infiltrating the hive from underneath.
The picture shows the hardware cloth on the bottom, entrance at far end, and starter strips above.

Area below living quarters for ventilation and to place lures/traps for small hive beetles.

I furthermore gave the hive a better coat of paint, removed it from the post stands and moved it side by side with my Lang hives. Right now I’m waiting for one of my 2 purchased packages to try again.

DO'h

2009-02-22T19:06:00.005-05:00

As Homer Simpson would have said after the mistake I made yesterday…DO’h! I took a walk to the bee yard this morning, as I do most weekend morning, and as I looked at the hives there was something that just didn’t look right. I couldn’t put my finger on it until DO'h…….. Now I can’t believe I did it and then walked away without noticing. (Picture from yesterday). Below is a picture from today after fixing the mistake. The blunder?? I put a deep brood box with 10 medium frames on top of “Old Faithfull”. How exactly does one do that?? Well …….. I just purchased, assembled and painted that deep box. I had it in the shop at the same time as I was installing starter strips in the medium frames. Afterwards I used it to haul the frames out to the bee yard. Without giving it a second thought, I placed it next to the hive and after inspecting it, I placed the deep with the frames instead of a medium. No real harm done. As seen in this picture on the 5th frame from right to left, the bees built up some bur comb overnight. Below is a picture of the top of “Old Faithfull”. This is the medium supper (brood nest expanded into it temporarily), there is a deep box below it, and now a medium supper above it. It is just the last week of February, I have not fed this hive at all and notice how strong it looks.

I use a digital Cannon EOS with Macro lens because I love the detail of the macro lens.

A couple of days ago Mike from Mike’s Farm forwarded me a video he saw by “FatBeeMan”. His Small Hive Beetle trap idea sounds interesting and his choice of building materials is very unique. I embedded his video below; he is a very knowledgeable beekeeper. For more of his videos look him up on Youtube under “FatBeeMan”. I took his bait idea and implemented it in my inspection/trap drawer. Below is a picture of the inspection drawer with an orange juice plastic jug cap baited with Crisco shortening. The cap simply floats on the oil.

This is a close up of the Small Hive Beetles that were trapped before the bait was installed. They simply come in the drawer or are chased in by the bees. The beetles fall into the vegetable oil and die. With the bait I’m hoping more will wander in.

Picture of the bait
The "FatBeeMan" on how to build and bait a Small Hive Beetle trap. I like his choice of construction materials.

Bee Winter Ends, Bee Spring Begins

2009-02-21T20:40:00.007-05:00

There is a small cold front in the area, but the daytime highs are in the mid 60’s. I have been feeding 16 ounces of 1:1 sugar water for a week to last years NUCs, almost 16 ounces every two days. Here is the bee yard as of today. Although the hives don’t need to be feed any more, I might as well use up the last remaining ¼ gallon instead of letting it go to waste.
From left to right: Empty NUC with 5 top bars and a wax started strip. Just in case a colony would like to move in to the neighborhood. Next to it is my original hive, “Old Faithful. It is one deep and 2 medium suppers. To the right my eager NUC; these ladies just went into this ten frame box with a ten frame supper last week. Finally on the right my last NUC form last year.

I like plastic frames because they don't warp with the Florida humidity but I like natural comb. Last year I had this idea about converting the plastic frames into plastic frames with starter strips. The picture below shows the unmodified plastic frame (top), and the hollowed out frame (below). I believe this configuration is the best to prevent the bottom of the frame from sagging.

I finally get to see my experiment at work. This is frame number 9 in the hive to the right. It appears the bee's began drawing out at the end of the strip.

This is Frame 8; they filled in the whole area I cut out with natural comb.

Flip side of frame 7, and close ups below.

Flip side of frame 7; they began to draw comb connecting both cutout sections.

Flip side of frame 7; they began to draw comb out above the cut out.

Flip side of frame 7; less than four days ago the queen expanded the brood next to the frame.

Now on to my Eager Colony… below is a frame out of their supper. I moved these guys into their new 10 frame home just last Friday. Last week the supper had 3 drawn out frames and 7 frames with one inch starter strips. Today the supper has seven frames that look like this. Since I just moved them last week, I didn’t want to inspect any deeper. The main purpose for opening this hive was to replace the top with a more permanent one.

Finally, “Old Faithfull”, now has two suppers and is currently configured as what some people call a 1.5 hive. One standard deep 10 frames hive body and one medium 10 frame supper/brood. The colony expands the brood into the first supper when in need for supplementary laying space. Below is the bottom of one of the outside supper frames. It is honey from top to bottom.

Below is a supper frame that sits above the brood next. Notice how the bottom edge is being used by the queen to lay eggs.

Here is a close up of the same frame showing capped and uncapped brood.

The new supper should provide plenty of room, but I have to keep a close eye on this one. They should be ready to swarm by the end of March if not sooner. Things look great in all the hives, except for the small hive beetles. The bees have them under control and keep them cornered, but I never seen so many Small hive Beetles in my colonies before. Below is a picture of the beetles that were trapped in my 3 inspection drawers for this week. I used a piece of window screen to pour out the oil and trap everything else. A close inspection revealed Small Hive beetles, 1 Small hive beetle larva, wax caps and pollen.

Since I didn’t want to waste some good protein, I took the screen out by the chicken coop. Oily Small hive beetles are a colossal treat for the chickens and they absolutely don’t let any go to waste.

Hobby or Job?

2009-02-15T17:33:00.006-05:00

I have been working the last few weekends just getting ready for the upcoming beekeeping year. Right now I have the TBH in the shop up on the work horses getting a new coat of paint, and a few modifications. I'll have more on the modifications to the TBH once they are finished. I have two new NUC’s, one is out as a swarm trap, and the other is to house one of my two 3lb bee packages due to arrive early May. I put together ten new supper wooden frames, and installed wax starter strips to twenty supper frames. I have been applying coats of paint to wood and Beemax hives, and I cooked up a gallon of sugar and water syrup…… good thing this is only a hobby.

The main thing I wanted to do this weekend was move my eager NUC into one of my new ten frame hive bodies with its new base. Below is a ten minute video of how I moved the NUC into its new home. I wish I had held the frames in front of the video camera a little longer. This five frame NUC had a five frame supper on it. Last fall I put 2 full frames of capped honey in the supper. The bees used up all those resources of honey over the winter, but they are working on drawing out the other supper frames. They are strong and progressing, but also have a bad infestation of Small hive Beetle. Hopefully the new base with the inspection drawer full of vegetable oil will trap enough beetles to bring it back under control.

If you saw the video, you saw me taking pictures. I like taking pictures, it allows me to see problems and fine details later on.
Frame one is fully drawn out but empty.
Pollen stores on Frame 2

Capped brood on Frame 3Uncapped brood on Frame 4
Pollen stores on Frame 5
The new hive is in the same location as the NUC, the only difference is the entrance is about 1 foot lower. Everyone that I shook out of the Nuc or was returning from foraging kept gathering at the same location where the old entrance would have been. It took 20 minutes before they all found their way in.

Here is “Old Faithfull” on the left, and the eager NUC in its new home in the middle. All the work I've been doing, and I forgot one of the most crucial components of the hive……. a HIVE COVER. I luckily had a scrap of plywood lying around that I can use while I prepare and paint a more permanent top.

Getting Ready!!!!!!!!

2009-02-08T20:25:00.014-05:00

February is the last month in Central Florida to prepare for the up coming beekeeping year. It was a beekeeping chores weekend.... here is what I accomplished.
I ordered two new M01691G VIZ PLASTIC HIVE STAND/VENTILATED BOTTOM BOARD, and two new Deep Beemax hives from Dadant.com. The hive stand aids with the Florida heat/humidity and the moats control the ants.

The Beemax hives insulate, are light weight, and will not warp in the humidity. Below is a picture of the dove tail joint. From experience it is better to assemble thm, and then paint them.

Using Beemax hives is rather untraditional, but here is a good example of what wood does in the Florida humidity. This is the top of a wooden frame I purchased last year. Plastic frames and hives may be unorthodox, but so are bees in the back yard.

I also put together two NUCs following the plans on beesouce.com. There is something very rewarding about building your own stuff. Below I’m practicing a lesson learned from last year. YOu need to make sure both the wooden and plastic frames don’t fit snuggly in the NUC. Also leave extra room for the wood frames to expand; otherwise they may not fit later on.

I like my tops and bottoms to flare out an inch or two.

First coat of paint drying, I like the new color. The yellow gallon is not gone; I’m just looking to add some more color out at the bee garden. This gallon of paint came from the reject shelf at Home Depot, I wonder if it was mixed incorrectly or someone thought this color would had look good on/in their house. Their loss my cheap gain.

Last chore of the day was inspecting the NUC that has been housed in the 10 frame box. I wanted to make sure these ladies had enough to eat after the cold spell we had. When I brought this NUC home, I just placed it on top of my hive stand. Watch the video to see me remove the traveling/double screen bottom. I removed the top to make the hive lighter, then I place a thin sheet of fiberglass to keep everyone inside until it had been moved, kill some small hive beetle with my hive tool, and finally I inspected it.

Here are some cool pictures from the inspection. The neat assortments of rainbow yellow colors are pollen,

there is also a lot of uncap nectar,

and good laying patterns.

Here is how the hive stands now. I had some extra honey from last season, and since it is low on honey/nectar stores …… It is getting fed.

Next weekend, my eager NUC joins the ten frame Hive club.

2009 Pollen count - Blooming plants of Central FL

2009-01-30T22:15:00.013-05:00

My Goal here is to track the local pollen count hoping to pinpoint ideal split times, ideal swarm season, best time to supper and rob honey. My two sources for the data in this page are http://www.pollen.com/ and http://entnemdept.ifas.ufl.edu/honeybee/ (UF Honey Bee and Research & Extension lab)

Central Florida Bee Blooming plants for January :
· Sand Pine · Maple · Willow

Central Florida Bee Blooming plants for February:
· Sand Pine · Maple · Willow · Plum · Cherry · Oak · Walther Viburnum · Sweet Clover · Blueberry · Haw · Fetterbush

February 2009-Pollen Count *32934

Central Florida Bee Blooming plants for March:
· Willow · Sand Pine · Maple · Willow · Plum · Cherry · Oak · Walther Viburnum · Sweet Clover · Blueberry · Haw · Fetterbush · Orange · Spanish Needle

March 2009-Pollen Count *32934

Central Florida Bee Blooming plants for April:
Orange · Sweet Clover · Wild Blueberry · Haw, Fetterbush · Spanish Needle · Galberry · Dog Hobble · Palmetto · Mexican Clover · Butter Mint

April 2009-Pollen Count *32934

Central Florida Bee Blooming plants for May:
Fetterbush · Spanish Needle · Galberry · Dog Hobble · Palmetto · Mexican Clover · Butter Mint ·
Palm · Gopher Apple · Joint Weed · Sandhill Prarie Clover · Spiderwort/day Flower

Central Florida Bee Blooming plants for June:
Spanish Needle · Dog Hobble · Palmetto · Mexican Clover · Palm · Gopher Apple · Joint Weed · Sandhill Prarie Clover · Spiderwort/day Flower · Mangrove · Red Bay · Cabbage Palm

Central Florida Bee Blooming plants for July:
Spanish Needle, Palmetto, Mexican Clover, Buttermint, Palm, Gopher Apple, Joint Weed, Redbay, Sandhill, Prairie Clover, Partridge Pea, Mangrove, Primrose Willow, Spiderwort/Dayflower

Central Florida Bee Blooming plants for August:
Spanish Needle · Mexican Clover · Weed · Redbay · Prairie Clover · Partridge Pea · Mangrove · Primrose Willow · Spiderwort/Dayflower

Central Florida Bee Blooming plants for September:
Spanish Needle · Mexican Clover · Redbay · Primrose Willow · Spiderwort/Dayflower · Spotted Mint · Goldenrod · Vine Aster · Sumac · Smart Weed · Brazilian Pepper · Bush Aster

Central Florida Bee Blooming plants for October:
Spanish Needle · Brazilian Pepper

Central Florida Bee Blooming plants for November:
Mexican Clover · Primrose Willow · Spotted Mint · Golden Rod · Vine Aster · Smart Weed · Bush Aster

2009-01-27T22:02:00.002-05:00

I keep referring to “my NUC in the ten frame hive body”. When a beekeeper refers to a NUC (Nucleus hive), we are usually talking about a hive composed of 5 frames that are house in a hive big enough to just hold those five frames. A colony is usually placed in a NUC when is a new colony, and they are attempting to re-queen themselves or if their numbers are down for what ever reason.

In a five frame Nuc a weak colony can easily control the environmental temperature, and guard it against pests. Frees up bees from those duties to forage and raise brood. Not that a weak colony can’t make it in a ten frame hive.

Here is a good picture of my Nuc that is housed in the 10 frame body. From Left to right are 3 empty frames, then the next five frames the NUC, the last two frames on the right again are empty. I bought two NUCs late last year. This colony went into this ten frame hive because I was out of five frame NUCs.

The following video is a great demonstration of orientation flights by the bees. The 1st time I ever saw this I though the bees were getting ready to swarm away, when I came to the conclusion they weren’t leaving I though they were under attack by some other colony. The first 45 seconds of the video are of the entrance of my NUC in the ten frame hive. They are working hard and going about their business. Then I focused the camera on my eager NUC and the bees can be seen performing orientation flights. The tell tales of an orientation flight are simple to spot. First, there is no fighting at the entrance, so they are not under attack. Second, the bees are not swarming away. They are just coming out and flying while facing the hive a few feet above it. These are new bees and they are getting acquainted with their surroundings. Making a mental picture of what their home and the surroundings will look like when they go out on longer foraging flights. For some it may just be a bathroom break too. In the middle of this madness are the guards at the entrance checking for friend or foe, the workers returning from their foraging trips, and the workers on their way to forage.

The rear of a hive is the safest place to be, except for right now. Every single bee doing orientation will simply be facing you. There are always one or two bees with a chip on their shoulder. They don’t want to sting, they just want you to stop blocking the view. Anyone notice the five frame supper on top of the Nuc? Two of those medium frames are full and capped. If I have to feed anyone thsi year, is not going to be this Nuc.

New Beekeeping Year

2009-01-26T19:54:00.010-05:00

Small article that made the wife remind me of why we want to stay in the bee closet. (Neighbors all abuzz about Palm Bay gardener's beehive) Now there are a few differences between the lady in the article and yours truly. Although she lives some 20 minutes south of me, I do live in a light agricultural zoned area. My neighborhood is all zoned to have one home of a lot of at least 2 acres. I am completely legal and allowed to have my hives, but you never know ……. I like my neighbors, they like me. There were bees in the area before I brought mine in; there will be bees in the area if I ever get rid of mine. I feel for her. A good beekeeper can be as responsible as owners of guns, or pit-bull dogs, but bees are more beneficial to the environment. Yet she is not been allowed to keep the one hive.

So 2009 will be my 3rd year beekeeping. After a typical Florida cold front, three/four days of cold overnight temps in the 30’s, the weather has return to a more seasonal upper 40’s overnight and low 70’s during the day. (Don’t you just love Florida?) There’s tons of activity around the hives… orientation flights and lots of pollen been brought in. The hives are ready to explode at the first sign of spring. There will be more cold fronts before then, but here in Central Florida it seems like spring begins the 1st of March for the bees. So I decided to do some cleaning around the bee yard. 1st, I needed to move the TBH out of the way. I want to make a few small modifications, and then place it on the bee stand next to my Lang hives. Therefore “Old Faithfull” (hive on the left) must move to the right. The Nuc (in the middle) must move to the right, and the Nuc that is housed in the 10 frame hive (all the way on the right) will stay where it is.

Is normal for me not to wear any protective clothing when I work around my hives, the rules are no walking close to the entrance, no sandals, and wear a hat/cap. A hat is very important. With bees flying in and out you never know when one will accidentally fly into your hair. Once in there it gets tangle in your hair, it panics, you panic …… This reminds me, up the sting count to 14. I forgot my hat a first, before taking this picture.

It was educational to dismantle and store (for now) the TBH. As the bees were collapsing, Wax Moths moved in to hasten their downfall. The collapse of the bees also means the end of the Wax Moths. What I didn’t know is how much damage the Moths not only inflict on wax, but also on wood. I found these un-hatch moths larvae between two Top Bars. After I scraped them off, I noticed that they actually dug grooves into the wood to make a nest.

Below are a few pictures of what they do to a drawn out frame. I mistakenly stored this clean drawn out frame in my shed. Nice dark dry place. I had completely forgotten I had put it in the shed, I don’t know how they found it in there but they did. Since the frame was clean of honey and pollen, there wasn’t much there for the moths to eat. The picture below shows the dead and dying moth larvae.

Here are pictures of the damage they create on a drawn out frame. Once the larva hatches it travels below the surface of the drawn out frame from cell to cell. In its path it leaves a paper/silk residue, and in the process of moving between cells it undermines the foundation of the comb rendering it useless and un- repairable to the bees. A huge advantage of plastic frames is that the foundation keeps the damage contain to one side of the frame. Had this been a natural drawn out comb, both faces of the frame would have collapsed.

Once the TBH was out of the way my next task was to remove the Queen Excluder I placed early last year on “Old Faithfull”. A Queen Excluder keeps the queen from moving up passed it to lay, so anything above it becomes storage for the bees. Now some people like to call it a honey excluder. They seem to think that bees don’t like to make their way passed it or that it slows progress too much. I don’t know!!!!! I am removing it this year to make my own conclusion. I can’t make any of my own claims until I see it for myself. Since this was the only productive hive I had last year, there was no side by side comparison. It is going to have to be last year’s performance versus this year performance. Allowing the queen to move freely creates the problem of having to select frames in this supper when is time to harvest honey. At any given time the queen may move up here to expand the brood nest. Here is a picture of the Queen Excluder in place. The holes are just the right size for workers to pass thru, but small enough to hold the queen back.

Pop quiz, there is something missing in the picture below. Yes, the queen excluder is missing, but no ….. That's not it. Something else is missing

A: There are only 9 frames. I removed the 10th frame. One frame always has to come out to allow more room to work with the other frames, and it usually sits on the ground by my feet. Always wear socks and no bell bottom pants to keeps out those ladies that decide to walk up your pant legs.
Why not always leave more room to work in there?? Simple, bees live and die by their bee space rule (3/8 inch), any space larger than 3/8 means there is room for more cells. This usually creates the problem seen below known as bridged comb. Instead of drawing out comb on the plastic foundation they draw out comb between this frame and the adjacent one.The problem with bridge comb is that it gets very messy when the frames are pulled apart. Last time I was here I probably didn’t push the frames tightly together. Some say that this is a good example that bees prefer to build their own cells with out the aid of the plastic foundation, but that wouldn’t explain why the rest of the frames look as nice as this one. In my short bee experience there are many explanations for bridge comb, but every one has one. All I do know is that by breaking this comb, and pushing the frames together, the bees will fix the problem and eventually draw it out correctly.

In conclusion: Here is how the bee yard looks as of today. To the left, and moving a few inches to the right every week “Old Faithfull”, in the middle my Eager Nuc. These ladies are hard workers and I think they have the potential to embarrass all the other hives this coming year with their work ethic. Their Ten frame hive body and base is in the mail. To the right …….. Yet to have earn a name: the Nuc in the ten frame body. They are doing OK, nothing to write home to mama that’s for sure.

Observations and Lessons of 2008

2009-01-07T21:51:00.008-05:00

What did I learn on my full second year of beekeeping here in East Central Florida? I really don’t feel any wiser, but not as uninformed on the subject as in the previous year.

Main lesson of 2008 - you may have a plan as a beekeeper, but nature and the bees may have a dissimilar plan. Don’t despair; I have to admit I did for a short while this past year when things went south.

My goals for 2009 – Four or five healthy hives by next September would be ideal.

My beekeeping observations and FAQ:
Q: Have I noticed any benefits around the yard because of the bees?
A: Yes, most definitely. Here are a few pictures (2 weeks ago, Mid December) of my Herb garden. The front pot in this picture has Chives. The chives have replenished themselves faster than we can bake potatoes. I have never had Chives be this prolific. Reminds me, I need to look for some more recipes that use chives. The plant in the back is a blackberry, I just purchased it late last summer so I missed its flowering season.

This next picture shows Chive seed pots that I cut from the plant above. Not sure why I’m trying to get more, but I felt like I should take advantage of all these seeds

I usually have to pull weeds after the growing season, this year I pulled Basil plants that began growing on their own all over the area. Have never had new Basil plants just sprout like weeds. I usually just buy seeds or small plants in the spring. These plants didn’t grow on the pot, I transplanted them into it.

Here is my Parsley and Oregano coming back. It actually never went away; new plants have just re-grown to replace the dying ones.

Q: Have you noticed more fruit in your fruit trees?
YES, but there is a very important lesson I would like to share here. The bees help with pollination which means every bloom will most likely turn into a healthy fruit. But the bees can’t make fruit trees bloom. I picked a record crop from my 2 citrus trees that bloomed last year, but nothing from the 2 trees that decided not to bloom for what ever reason. I still have not been able to figure out why my mango trees refuse to bloom, they look perfectly normal and healthy. One is about 6 foot tall and the other about 8.

Q: Any draw backs to having bees?
…………Yes, but I can live with it. Just as the good stuff has become prolific, so has the bad stuff like weeds, and crawling/chocking Georgia vines. It just means a little more maintenance around the yard. I think the worst side effect, and I will have to maybe give it another growing season to confirm it, is what seems to me like an unusual amount of seeds in the citrus. The picture below shows the seeds from one orange, just ONE. I don’t recall the oranges having these many seeds in previous years.

Q: How can your neighbors still not know you have bees?
A: Here is a picture of house and the lot. The Purple line depicts my property lines. It may look like it be impossible to walk around, but 80 percent of the lot is just covered with a nice mature canopy of live oak trees and pine. There is a driveway in there going straight from the street to the front of the house, and it forks to the right towards the garage. I swear there is. The bee yard is the middle of the black and yellow circle. Is buffered by a wall of Palmetto palms to the bottom (towards the road), to the right (towards the driveway), and the empty 2 acre lot to the left. I have a post and rail fence that divides the property in half, so there is really only one way in or out of the bee yard.

The neighborhood kids have been coming around since last summer to play with my kids. My wife and I though the jig would be up the minute they began playing around the lot, but so far no one has noticed the big yellow boxes. I keep thinking one of these days they are going to slow down enough to notice them and ask, so I want to come out of the beekeeping closet, but my wife would rather have me wait until someone asks about them. So here I am still in the closet.

Slacker Apology and Update

2009-01-06T23:46:00.005-05:00

I have been a Lazybones, loafer, and Slacker Blogger / beekeeper. I have tons of bad excuses for it all, but I prefer my one good excuse. I was letting nature take its course, and letting the bees work their magic under an occasional watchful eye. Not only have I not kept up this blog, but I’ve ignored my email also. My apologies to those of you that emailed with questions and offers for me to come and get hives/swarms you found in your yards. I guess missing out on free bees will be my own punishment. I promise this will not happen again.

My last Blog was in September right after I did my honey harvest of my only remaining hive. “Old Faithful” is the name I think it has earned. This is my first hive and it has managed to overcome my mistakes as a beekeeper, the environment of my yard (lots of shade and ants), and all the flooding from this years tropical storm.

Soon after that harvest I placed the empty frames, for protection and cleaning, on top of “Old Faithful”, and went out to purchase a couple of NUCS from my local bee dealer. My setup was: “Old Faithful”, a new healthy NUC (5 frames), and one healthy NUC in a 10 frame hive. They have all been thriving in the bee yard for almost 3 months now. It may be due in part to my decision that there would be nothing to gain or lose by inspecting them this late in the year, so might as well let things “bee” (beekeeper joke)

Mid December I decided it was time to do a quick inspection to confirm every hive had good winter stores. Much to my surprise “Old Faithful” did not only have enough, but was suffering of an excessive amount of honey stores. The 9 frame supper I had placed on top of it for cleaning did not only get cleaned, but 6 out of 9 frames were refilled.

So going into this Florida winter (November was unseasonably cold, December has been mild) I have “Old Faithful” in a 10 frame Lang hive, queen excluder, and a full 10 frame supper (after I robbed the top supper). I want to remove the queen excluder before spring, to allow the queen to partially use this supper for laying. More on this idea later. The activity is normal for this season, and I can see Pollen coming in even now.

My 5 Frame Nuc in the standard NUC hive now has a 5 frame supper on it. Two frames are full courtesy of “Old Faithful” and three are ¼ drawn out.

My 5 frame NUC in a 10 frame box looks good and I decided it was in a perfect stage to try an experiment I never got to try this summer. I removed the outside plastic frames, (3 on east side, 2 on the west) and replaced them with my modified plastic starter strip frames. Natural beekeeping aided by an invention of modern beekeeping. I find plastic frames easier to pull out of the hive. The humidity doesn’t expand them or warp them, but I like the natural wax foundation on wooden frames so bees can build the size they want to build. To me, if it works, this would be the best of both worlds. If I see good progress, I may take all my plastic medium supper frames and modify them this way. Right now I’m not sure what is going to happen, check back and find out.

So what became of the 5 capped honey frames I found in “Old Faithful”? I placed 2 Full frames in the NUC's supper; a third frame broke apart when I attempted to pull it. It had been badly bridge to adjacent empty frames. I threw the mess on the ground and let the bees clean it. The other 3??? Well, there was a December Florida honey harvest. I kept the 16 ounce jar, for Christmas I honey baked a ham with the 2 cups of honey in the Tupperware, and the rest were sold or given away as stocking stuffers.

Finally Good News…

2008-09-01T23:29:00.006-04:00

Once things dried up the middle of last week, I ventured for a look see on my last remaining hive and found two capped suppers and a very strong hive. Talk about being caught completely unprepared. I also got stung once on the back of my upper arm which upped the sting count to 10. My reactions are definitely diminishing by the sting.

Unless your goal as a beekeeper is to have your hives swarm out, two capped suppers and a strong hive is a good indicator for the beekeeper to take a supper or two off. My plan was remove both suppers off (9 frame wooden frames, 10 frame plastic frames), and replace them with a new nine frame supper (Wooden frames). Things didn’t go as planned. I’ll write a how to when things go right, but for now up the sting count by another three. One found a way under my veil and got me on my neck, one got me on my right shoulder, and one followed me all the way to the garage. The minute I removed my veil it got me on my ear.

The current configuration of the hive is as follows. Deep 10 frame (plastic), queen excluder (which I would like to remove), 10 frame supper (plastic) that can come off in a week or two, and a brand new 9 frame (wooden) supper.

I removed six wooden frames from the nine frame top supper. Two frames were about 30 percent drawn out with no honey, and one was fully drawn out, but the honey was only capped on one side.

How much honey from 6 frames? 264 ounces = 22.01 cups = almost 1 ½ gallons of Honey. Two 32 ounce jars have honey, all others are just filtered honey.

This is how I processed the raw honey. Once indoors I:

Cut the honey comb out of the frame.

the comb that will be use for comb honey (do not uncap) and then everything else is crush and strain. Here I am crushing comb with a mash potato masher.

Once it’s mashed I pushed the comb to one end of the Tupperware and inclined the container so the honey runs to the side free of comb. In Florida the heat of my garage helps the honey run to one side in about 10 minutes.
Allow the frames and crush comb to drip some more

Drain the separated honey into a bucket with a filter. I like to use a two stage filter. Medium filter, and then a fine filter.

Bottle and label if you wish

Wonder what the stomachache is??? One too many helpings of raw honey…the kids and I love comb honey. I hope to repeat this in a few weeks with the bottom supper, and then hopefully once more in November with the Pepper tree flow

I’m a Slacker

2008-09-01T22:54:00.011-04:00

It has been a while since my last entry. I was on vacation for several weeks, dealing with Tropical Storm Fay effects and aftermaths, and weeks of sad heart breaks when it came to coverage of the hives.

First the Top Bar Hive – I installed a split from my hive with an Australian queen. Talk about docile bees, they were a joy to work with, but way too docile for my local environment. These ladies worked extremely hard and fast, but would never hurt a fly. Eventually they could not outwork the damage created by the Small hive beetle and ants.

Then there are the two packages I ordered at the beginning of the season. I believe they sat at the post office for one day too many. My guess is that ½ of the bees in the packages had perished by the time I got them home. The bees released the queens, but they never laid a single egg. Both packages collapsed.

Soon after, I purchased two Nucs from a local beekeeper. Both Nucs collapsed or absconded ……. I’m not sure why. Harassed by ants and small hive beetle is my best guess.

With my evil beekeeping streak, I decided to leave alone my last and only remaining original hive.

Soon after, we had Tropical Storm/Hurricane Fay which hung around for about five days, dumping over two feet in my area. That is correct ……… 25.8 inches of rain in 3 days.

Below are pictures of what happens when you get tons of rain. Water level on my yard rose about 14 inches on this side of the lot. Thank God for the new stand, six more inches and everyone would had gone for a swim.

Below is my chicken coup. (note: chicken poop marinating in water for a few days is really stinky)

My shed, it was close, but it never made it in,1/4 of an inch and it would have

Path of Fay. Arrow indicates my location

Can someone please remove my area from the drought list ...............

What is missing?

2008-05-27T00:02:00.003-04:00

I’m somewhat puzzle by what I saw today. It most likely has been a very stressful month for the bees. Up until this past weekend we had not seen any rain fall for over a month, and wild fires had all of Brevard County on edge. Thankfully not too close to my home to worry about them, but close enough for the winds to bring a constant smell of smoke for a several days.

I did some rearranging of the apiary. Trying to make it look neater and preparing in case of hurricane. I can tie down each of the hives (not including the TBH). The new base also lifts the hives more so I have to bend down even less now. It had to be a husband and wife effort to lift the hives and move them back. All she said was “If I get stung I’m going to kill you”

I did a light inspection but enought to see that something is missing from each of the pictures below, what is it?? Can you tell?

Front and back of the 1st bar out of the TBH.

Front and back of the middle frame out of the 1st supper from my original hive. Everything looks normal here and I didn’t go any further, but maybe another month and I can take the honey from this supper

Not much progress from one of my purchased package (installed in the 10 frame body). The frame on the right came from the NUC that used to sit on top of the TBH. Aside from the perpendicular mess on the frame to the left, not much growing going on. I’ll deal with the mess once the package is stronger and it has time to deal with the remodeling.

The NUC really has done nicely with its limited space. 75% of the medium body has been drawn out. For their great effort they get a deep 5 frame body with the foundationless plastic frames, but as good as they look something is missing here too.

Aside from the one frame (from the supper) that I pulled out of my original hive that should not have the one thing missing ……. what is missing??????? Anyone see any brood or eggs? I didn’t …… anyone know why?? There are two ponds with in 50 feet so is not lack of water. The hives had plenty of honey stores and pollen stores. so why is no one laying???? Are there queens? Not much I can do now. I’ll wait two more weeks and go in for a full queen search, and maybe prepare to combine hives.

Upgrades and Experiments

2008-05-26T23:02:00.003-04:00

Below is a 5 frame deep body complete with a screen bottom. The 5 frames going into the NUC will be part of a personal experiment. Sometimes I think I should learn basic beekeeping before I try experimenting……………. But today will not be the day.

The experiment:
I want to see what the bees will do with a plastic frame that technically is foundationless.
Why:
My personal opinion of Plastic frames is mixed. It has pros like giving a head start to newly introduced packages. They don’t warp or expand with humidity. They are one solid molded piece of plastic which means is not going to easily break apart or come unnail. Unlike wood it doesn’t absorb bee’s wax which I think makes it easier to pull out from a hive. On the other hand, the beauty of natural comb is just unmatchable by any comb build on a plastic foundation frame. Plastic frames make it easier for invaders (like small hive beetles) to cohabit with in the hive. Basically when there are only enough bees to protect a few frames, intruders will make themselves at home sometimes on an adjacent frame away from the cluster. Basically out of sight out of mind for the bees.
What:
Five hollowed out plastic frames with enough foundation left to act as starter strips. The side and center strips I left behind to keep the integrity of the frame. With out it I believe the frame (sides and bottom) will droop out of shape. Last, the new modified bottom of the TBH. This is the inspection drawer that slides in and out. It used to be solid, but after the inspection window was fogging up, I figured it was time for a screen bottom to help with ventilation.

Things change overnight

2008-05-11T23:25:00.004-04:00

The NUC looks very strong and active.

The new hive has taken in about 32 ounces of sugar water in 3 weeks, and is beginning to look stronger. Obviously they have a long way to go, but they are off on the right path for now.
My original hive is once again looking good with its robust number of bees at the entrance.
The obvious U-turn in the apiary was taken by the TBH. It's my belief that there isn’t a single root cause to their problems but a complex combination of problems. Then again, since I’m the one in charge of the apiary it could be said the beekeeper is the sole root cause.
First – Invaders: during the week I noticed a few small hive beetle larva on the bottom of the TBH. A quick inspection revealed that the bees had completely moved out of NUC, therefore the NUC began to be over run by beetle larva. I quickly removed the remaining frames and the NUC, froze the frames for 24 hrs, and later attempted to let the bees clean the four frames. Four hives and none of the bees would have anything to do with the frames. My guess is that the honey had been completely fouled up by the SHB larva.

Second – Lack of ventilation: condensation in the inspection glass, and some honey running out are the obvious clues. I removed the inspection drawer which doubles as the bottom, and inserted some ¼ inch hardware cloth. I’ll make something more permanent later on. A non solid bottom should greatly improve the ventilation. Today’s high was 95 and it has been weeks since we had some significant rain. (Picture, bottom right is honey from the 1st couple of top bars)
Third – The occupants: the NUC was a split from my original hive with an introduced Australian queen. The local bees are familiar with the Small hive Beetle and are aggressive against them. They are more likely acclimatized to the local hot and humid weather too. It seems that as soon as the local bees were replaced completely by the Australian bees, the invaders and the temperature problems began. Fortunately the Australians seem to be efficient, tolerant hard workers. With some help they seem to stay one step ahead of invaders, and don’t know any better to abscond for a different cooler place. In two weeks they have drawn out the 1st four top bars.

Thank God for partial shade, but I know other Florida beekeepers keep their hives in the full sun. HOW do the bees do it?

Couldn’t Imagine…

2008-05-04T23:03:00.004-04:00

being a professional beekeeper and having hundreds, maybe thousands of hives to inspect. Just examining a Top Bar, two Langs, and a NUC hive were enough to make me break a good sweat today. It has to be hard work doing it day in and day out.

As I did my rounds, the kids took some time to decorate my spare Beemax mediums.
Overall results of today’s inspection: Both new packages released their queens from their cages ………… and the whole lot is looking great.

The Top Bar Hive -
Earlier in the week I noticed the Aussie bees from this hive removing larva in various stages of development, and a large cluster of bees on the 1st two bars. In fact it’s so large I can’t tell if they are drawn out or not. My guess was that they were converting the NUC to a supper. If they are removing larva from the NUC above, it would explain where the larva is coming from and indicate that all new brood is being laid in the TBH cavity.
I want to remove the NUC that populated this hive ASAP. I don’t want the bees to waste labor hours and resources working in it and I really want to see the hive without all that clutter over it.
The inspection confirmed my gut feeling, and I had a plan in the off chance that I could be right. I took one of the outside frames and replaced it with a filler frame I built/designed. The plan is to remove a frame every two weeks, and replace it with a filler frame in its place. It’s a simple ¾ inch piece of wood shaped like a frame.
Above is the outside frame that was replaced by the filler. A few weeks ago this frame was brand new never used. The top bar hive is really growing and by far is the strongest hive in the apiary right now.

The Original hive - (One 10 frame deep, and 2 mediums)
It may no longer have the numbers, but it has the tools to become the strongest hive in no time at all. The hive has plenty of honey, drawn out frames, and a new queen with tons of laying room. First frame of the new queen, Good laying pattern.The medium supper that had become part of the brood box was converted back into a supper and is about 75% full. I moved the queen excluder below it and maybe in a month when the hive is back to strength the supper can be harvested. The second supper is about 25% full.

The New Hive - (One 10 frame deep)
Minimal inspection. All I wanted was to confirm the successful release of the queen, and to insert the frame that was donated by the TBH (4th from right to left in picture). Honey and some laying room will not do this new package any harm. It is great to have a strong hive that can support a weaker hive.

The miniNUC - (5 frame medium) Turns out the converted NUC’s supper is the perfect size for the weak package. The queen was also released and the bees are hard at work on 3 of the five frames. NUC’S, due to their reduced size, can out grow their hive in no time, therefore these guys are not being feed. They have just one frame with wax foundation, and the minute they have anything to spare……… it is going to be donated to any of my other hives that can use it. I have a few experiments in mind for these guys, and they are also to serve as my emergency queen hive holder.

Hive beetles are running rampant in the NUC above theTBH. Are the Aussie bees so gentle that they don’t put up a fight????? And in my original hive, they used to keep them under control; they just don’t have the numbers to crowd and protect the hive currently.

Caught Completely Unprepared

2008-04-29T21:52:00.005-04:00

When I arrived home from work today I had a message from the Post Office. It said they had bees for me that have been there for 3 days and they were worried if they weren’t picked up soon they wouldn’t make it. THEN WHY DIDN’T they call the day they arrived!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh well, my only guess is that with everyone fearful of the packages, they put it out of the way and it was forgotten. This is how two 3 pound packages are shipped via the Post Office.
I was not expecting the packages for at least another week. I was going to spend the upcoming weekend getting ready for them. Well, scratch that, instead I get to show how to improvise for one of the packages. Both queens arrived in good health, but one of the packages had a lot of dead bees in it. The stronger package went into the deep body that about a month ago I set up to use as a bait hive.
The stronger package went into the ten frame hive above. It was the weaker package that I wasn’t ready for. The NUC I built is still tied up over the Top Bar Hive. The supplies I had in my bee shed consists of two medium suppers and a supper for the NUC. I decided that the mediums would be too big for such a weak package, so my only other option was to convert the NUC’s supper into a mini NUC. Why? Well, if my main hive has not been able to re-queen itself, I can take the mini NUC and insert it into that hive to re-queen it.

First I had to put all the components together. I took the Nuc’s supper and drilled a hole for an entrance. I improvised a top that I never even got around to painting. For a base I took out my old Beemax base. Now I have a mini NUC.

Then I hastily put five frames together in less than 20 minutes. The nail gun is handy as is a square ruler, foundation, and wooden frame parts. First apply some glue and put the frames together. Then square them out and use the nail gun to put them together permanently. Just one of the frames has a wax foundation installed on it.

Installing the packages was a breeze. I looked like a pro; too bad no one was around to see me.
First, separate the packages and pry the lid covering the syrup can off. The tab coming up out of the box holds the queen cage. Hold on to it unless you wish to stick your hand into a box of bees to retrieve the queen’s cage. Spray the bees with sugar water (1:1) . Gently tap the box on the ground a couple of times to drop all the bees to the bottom. Using the hive tool, lift the can of syrup enough to grab on to it. Lift it out, remove the queen’s cage, and use the lid to cover the hole.
On the queen’s cage…… remove the cork on the side of the cage that holds the candy. Punch a hole (nail or pocket knife) in the candy to make sure it has not dried out. Place the cage between two middle frames. Dump some bees over the cage. No need to make sure they all come out, specially not the dead bees. Having to remove dead bees is just something else the bees will have to do later. Leave the package close by, and the bees in the hive will call in the rest.
Yes, it’s sitting on the bird bath. Did I mention I didn't even have a stand ? Cover the hive, and wait 4 days to inspect to see if the queen was released.

Festooning on the 1st bar

2008-04-22T22:33:00.005-04:00

One question keeps been ask about the TBH. Why use foundation? Isn't the idea of a TBH suppose to be about all natural? Well ... yes, but I'm no expert at this, so last thing I wanted was new wax breaking during an inspection. Notice in the pictures the type of foundation I chose: Is wire reinforce wax.

A few days ago I figured out the best way to take good pictures through the observation window.

For weeks I have been fighting three hurdles when taking pictures via the observation window of the TBH; the sunlight reflection off the plexy glass, the reflection of the camera’s flash on the window, and the camera’s auto focus.
Dusk and early morning (light is not over my shoulder) turned out to be the best times to take pictures.
By reading online I learned that turning the camera upside down is an old pro’s tip to reduce glare on subjects during close ups, this greatly reduces the flashes glare.
The auto focus problem is created when bees attempt to attack my face the minute I open the window and get up close (you wouldn’t like a voyeur on your bedroom window either). The camera can’t seem to make up its mind between the bees on the window and the bees in the background. It has been a long time since I used the manual focus.
Regardless, I finally got some good pictures and now I can inspect the progress.
Here are a couple of pictures I took today. The 1st shows the bees festooning. It took me a while to figure out what the clump was about, but they are festooning the way I drew the lines. This means they are preparing to draw out comb on the 1st bar. Technically is the 2nd bar. The 1st bar is a hollowed out bar that allows the bees to move up to the NUC cavity.

Finally, good activity in the THB. The last pictures are close ups of this next picture.
Close up of center show the bees have sealed in between all the Top bars.
Close up of top right ……. Little unwanted SHB visitor. If they get bad I’ll think about baiting a trap in the inspection drawer.

Busy Apiary

2008-04-13T22:30:00.008-04:00

From right to left; my empty ten frame deep hive, just in case my main hive decides to swarm, I hope they go there. Mike purchased some swarm bait (Lemon oil, I swear it smells like wood furniture polish), and he let me have a few q-tips soaked in it. I used two to bait the hive. In Florida we need to be aware about African honey bees. There is no difference in behavior of swarms between European or African honey bees, so they can pose a deadly danger. My best and safest scenario are the two 3lb packages on order due to arrive early May; if no one moves into the empty hive one of these packages will get installed in it.

In the middle is my main hive. The bees decided to supersede the queen, ever since there have just been small amounts of eggs. The honey flow has begun, and instead of being up to strength or growing, the hive has been declining. I popped off the top today. There were a handful of bees working the supper, and more of the frames have been drawn out. Definitely not close to the strength it was before the split. An inspection on the 1st week of May should reveal a new laying queen. Sometimes I wonder if they swarmed, aside from the diminish number of bees signs don’t point towards that.

Finally on the left the Top Bar Hive with the Nuc sitting on top of it; this hive is slowly captivating more and more of my attention. I think it might be the fact that I build it myself. I’m waiting for the bees to decide to move down so I can remove the Nuc. The kids and I enjoy taking a peek now and then via the inspection window. The number of bees in the TBH cavity increases daily, but I still have not observed any work been done on the foundation or the top bars.
Below is the view into the TBH. The Boardman feeder can be seen behind the follower board. The bees are no longer taking any sugar syrup. On the other side of the follower board are eight strips of wax foundation, and the hollowed out 1st Top bar that allows the bees to move up into the Nuc cavity.

I decided to pop the top off the Nuc for a quick inspection. I didn’t pull any of the frames out; I didn’t feel it was necessary. The Nuc looks strong, and the Australian bees are starting to out number the local bees that came from the split. Right now all the bees that came with the split are foraging, and all the Australian bees are doing the inside work. My guess is that in less than two months the local bees in the TBH will die off, and the Australians will completely populate this hive. I replaced the top of the Nuc with a top that has zero clearance between the frames and the cover. There was too much burr comb being built in the space. I’m doing anything I can think of to make it as uncomfortable as possible to encourage the bees to move down.
I noticed one thing today on my inspections. The small hive beetle trap was full as usual in my main hive, but there were no beetles to be seen in the TBH. I could only guess why at this point.

Redirect Traffic on the TBH

2008-04-06T22:54:00.003-04:00

I’ve been somewhat disappointed in the lack of interest the bees have shown on the cavity of the TBH. Observations in the window were rather uneventful. Usually 3 or 4 bees exploring the wax I used to install the starter strips.

Saturday I decide to take drastic measures. I closed the Nuc’s entrance, and forced traffic to have to redirect down into the TBH’s entrance. There was a huge jam for 10 minutes were the Nuc’s entrance used to be. Eventually a couple of bees found the new entrance, began fanning, and traffic resumed in and out via the TBH entrance. Inspection today (looked into the observation window) revealed several dozen bees showing interest in the 1st bar inside the TBH

I rather this group wouldn't waste too much time, energy, or resources building up the nuc. I would like to use the nuc and the drawn out frames to kick start my packages due at the beginning of May.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

2008-04-06T21:40:00.004-04:00

My aspiration is to one day run three functioning hives (2 langs, the TBH, and a NUC maybe two). Three weeks ago I split my hive in the hopes that I could begin my goal. As I moved forward; I may inadvertently slightly slowed progress.

Last week I found an uncapped supercedure queen cell. A supercedure cell is the way a hive replaces a failing, sick, old, or injured queen. That means the old queen is still around. How do I know the old queen is around?? There are 4 to 5 day old larvae. Not much but there are some.

Since I wasn’t sure of what to do, I spend the week reading and informing myself. I used the beekeeping forums and a Florida beekeeper got in touch with me to offer his advice. All in all, a great bunch of helpful people. There are definitely many ways to skin this cat. Meaning there are many paths to being a successful beekeeper, and to mess things up. Was the queen injured during the split???? By removing so many eggs and brood, and breaking up the brood nest did the bees think that the current queen was failing???????

Who knows for sure! Right now the cause is rather useless. The facts are the hive has four queen cells and I find myself referencing the bee math once again (last year for the 1st time). The pictures below show both sides of the same frame and a queen cells on each side. The location of the queen cells makes them supercedure cells. Swarm cells would be located at the bottom of the frame.
(Above Queen cell to the right) (Above Queen cell to the left)
In about 16 days one queen will hatch, kill the un-hatched queens, fly out to mate, and eventually take over the hive. I will leave the hive alone for 20 days, and hopefully an inspection by then will reveal new eggs from the new queen.

PS. when it rains, it poures. I don't know what I was thinking when I placed my hot smoker on the Beemax top. Some fiberglass resin should fill the hole nicely

Nuc Inspection and Move

2008-03-31T00:44:00.005-04:00

I can’t find a queen to save my life, but I can always see the tell tales that there is one. The down under Queen has been doing her job in her new home for about 10 days, and is plenty evident by the capped and uncapped brood. The Nuc is on its way to being independent, and I performed a two day move to attempt to populate the TBH. Maybe I’m being a little inpatient, but I wanted to see bees in the TBH which I build.

On day one I inspected the Nuc, lifted it and placed it over some window screen. After sunset, when I was positive that all the bees would be inside, I closed the entrance.
The next day I prepared the TBH by placing 7 bars with a started strip, removed the 1st bar, and place the bar that has an entrance for the bees to enter the TBH from the Nuc. Then I moved the Nuc off Hive #1, replaced the cover on the hive, and used the screen I placed the day before to keep the bees in as I lifted the Nuc off the double screen. The Nuc moved a total of 3 feet east, 1 foot south, and rotated the entrance 180 degrees. Right now the Nuc has the original entrance and one on the top bar hive.
I wanted to keep the Nuc’s entrance close, but as I slowly pulled the screen away, the entrance reducers fell off, and before I knew it the bees poured out of the Nuc and began orientation flights, so I decided to let them be as you see it. Maybe I’ll close the top entrance soon, maybe I won’t. Either way, the bees in the Nuc should move down looking for more room soon enough. My hope is that they do it in a month. I would like to use these drawn out frames to kick start my bee packages that are due to arrive early May.

There is one danger when moving a hive. Some bees, but not all; always return to the previous location of the hive. All day long some bees came out to forage, and returned to the old spot. As the hive is no longer there they would fly in a small circle around the previous location, and then notice the new location. They would fly to the back, and walk around until they would find the front entrance.

As the day progressed, less and less bees would go to the old location. There is some interest in the TBH, mostly towards the wax I used to melt the foundation to the TBH. Should be exciting, unfortunately, the plexy glass will reflect too much, and the pictures of progress will not be as good as I had hoped.
Seven Top bars with foundation as view from the Inspection window

Hive #1 Inspection

2008-03-31T00:26:00.005-04:00

I mostly wanted to check on the progress of the supper. WOW!!!!!!!!! Natural honey comb is rather gorgeous. Good progress has been made on the 3 middle frames. One is fully drawn and full, the other two look like this one. It is a long way to go before the 1st honey harvest of the year; to be honest I was a little disappointed. I had envisioned ¾ of the supper to be drawn out. I would say is more like just a ¼.

I decided to remove the supper and inspect the top medium brood box. Just to make sure that all is going well. I pulled a couple of frames and found a nice laying pattern. Remember, the pictures below are of medium frames. They sit above a deep brood box, 3 frames from the deep came out two weeks ago to make my NUC.
The shocker and somewhat puzzling find was a single empty supercedure cell. I’m 100% sure it was not there 2 weeks ago when Mike and I split the hive. (Queen cell on middle right)
Close up of queen cell from picture above
Why is it there??? Is the queen hurt? Or failing?? If she is you would never guess it from the laying patterns. Another theory would be the hive is still preparing to swarm, in that case is a swarm cell. Or they were getting ready to swarm, I split the hive and the hive stopped plans to swarm.

Facts
Queen Cell was not there two weeks ago (exactly 15 days) when I split the hive.
It takes a queen 16 days to emerge out of a queen cell, plus maybe a day or two to build the Queen cell.

Conclusion
It has to be a new never used queen cell.

Solution
Inspect next week, if the cell has been capped then maybe split again, create a mini NUC this time (5 medium frames), allow queen to emerge and start a new hive..

Drone Cell Inspections

2008-03-30T21:44:00.003-04:00

Two weeks ago when I split the hive, with the help of Mike, I also cleaned some of the drone cells below the frames. (Drone cells removed during split)The picture below should help explain where the drone cells came from. The base I use helps me control the ant problem. It also slopes towards the inspection drawer. I keep the drawer full of vegetable oil. The oil traps Small hive beetles and what ever other foreign critter happens to fall in or attempts to use it as a hiding place. As you can see from the picture, the slope of the base violates the bee space, which the bees use to build burr comb. Since they build it naturally they tend to make it drone cells. Today I took the time to inspect the cells for Varroa Mites. They were in my freezer for the last two weeks. I found larva in all stages of development. At first inspecting cells was simple but as the developing larva’s began to thaw out …….. Well, my kids explained it the best, they became “Juicy”. The drones that were in the later stages of development I still could inspect but early stages of drone larva were too juicy

I did find a small amount of Varroa, nothing to be concerned about, but something to be aware off. I might dust with confectioner’s sugar next week. (Below -Varroa on Top center on brood, and bottom right on cell I had removed brood out of)

Close of of bottom right from picture above

Below- Developing drone pulled out fo cell
The rest of the wax and all of the bees went to my two legged garbage disposals… my chickens, four Rhode Island Reds and two Leg Horns. Nothing went to waste.

The week following the Split

2008-03-23T20:46:00.004-04:00

All external observations indicate the Nuc is doing great. So good that I decided to forgo an inspection, that and the weather really was not great. It was cool with scattered showers, so why disturb them and get in the way of progress. Starting late Friday the activity has been what I captured in the slides below.

If I stand by the Nuc long enough I can catch one or two air bubbles coming up in the mason jar of the feeder, an indication that they are also feeding from it.

How is the main hive from which the split came from? Below are a few picture slides from this afternoon.
I took 3 frames from the main hive during the split…frame number 9 (pollen/Honey), frame number 8 (capped brood on both sides) and frame number 5 (capped brood on one side). My concern with the main hive……... I may not have weakened it enough to discourage it from swarming later in the season.

I’m glad I went with a Double Screen Split. There have been a few nights in which the temperature dipped under 60 and tomorrow night it’s supposed to be a low of 49. The main hive below should supply sufficient heat for the Nuc, and it definitely has provided protection. I’m very satisfied with how things look. The only draw back of the double screen split is that since the Nuc is on top it makes it a little complex to inspect the hive below. I’m debating on moving the Nuc over the TBH next weekend.

The TBH needs a few things before is completely ready to receive the Nuc. I need to weather proof the Top bars so I can place the Nuc over them, and I need to add some starter strips on the bars. I made a landing platform for the entrance, but didn’t have time to paint it due to the rain.

I think it’s crucial that the Nuc is in place for the main honey flow. Sometimes I sense the plants have begun the spring flow only the weather (too windy), and the cooler nights/days have not been ideal for the bees to fly. The Saw Palmettos are getting ready to bloom (One of he main sources of honey in Florida). How much Palmetto is in Florida??? A LOT!!!!!!!!! I know that’s all I have in the front of my property. Saw Palmettos are the buffer between my bee yard, the main road, the neighbors, and my house.

Nuc's Queen Acceptance

2008-03-20T23:48:00.003-04:00

Four days after introducing a new queen to the newly created NUC, I did a quick inspection to see if she had been released. She was and it seems like things are progressing normal.

I smoked the parent hive (bottom hive) lightly to see if it would produce the all too familiar buzzing roar of a queen less hive. I have never ever seen the queen from that hive and I was somewhat disappointed and worried when, during the split, she was not spotted. Luckily it sounds like I have nothing to worry about, the buzz from the hive sounded normal.

My next steps were to remove the queen’s cage out of the NUC and then create room for the 5th frame. The three dead bees inside the cage worried me for a bit. After I brought them in the house for a closer inspection; I noticed that they were workers and they weren’t part of the original bees in the cage. Why they died in the cage I have no idea. My hope is that the new queen is out and about, and these bees were disoriented and couldn’t make it out after falling in. Here is a short video of it.

The NUC is sitting on top of the parent hive and there is a double screen between them. There's about ½ inch between the screens which allows the parent hive to share its heat and ventilation resources with the NUC on top. I’ll inspect on Saturday for eggs. The Nuc is weak, but there is 1 1/2 frames of caped brood that should hatch any day now, and the new queen should be out and laying eggs. The chances are good that this will be the Nuc I will use to populate my TBH in two weeks time. Or so I'm hoping.

S-Day- And then there were TWO

2008-03-15T22:48:00.008-04:00

Split-day kicked off the day the Queen bee from Down Under (Australian Queen) was scheduled to arrive. The bees looked great for having had experienced a two day journey from BRYAN, TX, via HOUSTON, TX, LOUISVILLE, KY, ORLANDO, FL and finally MELBOURNE, FL, in addition to the journey from Australia to B Weaver. Any one wonder what an Australian queen bee and her attendants look like?? How about how are they shipped??

The queens came in their cage, each with their attendants, and stapled to the inside of a UPS envelope. One queen for Mike, and one for myself; it’s a miracle they arrived in such good shape. As soon as the package arrived we dipped our fingers in syrup and smeared some on the screen of the cages. The bees urgently took it. I also supplied some water this way.

There was really no time to stop and take pictures during the split, and I find it silly to go into detail of how a novice splits his hive. Below you see the result of a double screen split. Three deep frames, shook bees from a few others, and one plastic foundation frame in a Nuc sitting above the original hive. All divided by a double screen. I will add a fifth frame after I remove the queen’s cage. The hive below provides environmental control (heat and air circulation) and protection. The Nuc just has to work on establishing a new colony.

Above- Front entrance of main hive. Feeder in entrance, Nuc on top

Things went well ...... I observed the 1st supper of the season been worked on, and I did some minor hive maintenance during the split. There is a lot of room between my lower deep body and the base. It violates the bee space, but when you have lemons just make lemonade. The burr comb in the inch or so of space is used by the bees to build drone cells. So ….. You need an easy way to remove the drone cells to inspect for Varroa?? Maybe all you want to do is use the drone cells to bait the Varroa?? Just violate the bee space and the bees will make a nice trap for those purposes. Above is that entire burr comb that Mike scrapped off of 3 or 4 frames while I held them. Look at all the drone brood.

We inspected 80% of the deep body, and about 20 percent of the medium. Two sets of eyes, very cooperative gentle bees, but we never found the Queen. I’m 99.9% sure that she did not accidentally go in the Nuc. The chances that she is crushed somewhere accidentally in the hive??? Well, that’s always possible and is any ones guess.

Once the Nuc was complete I closed it up for 3 hrs. No worries, remember the hive below provides ventilation. After 3 hrs I gave them a small entrance and a new queen.

Queen ready to be introduce. Candy side up, and 10lb fishing line with a 3 inch nail on the other end.Queen introduced to nuc. Nail with string ensures that cage doesn't fall to the bottom, and nail will keep me from having to stick my fingers deep to pull the cage out in 3 to 4 days.

So far everything looks perfect. The hive below is active as ever. They have 3 new plastic foundation frames to work on, and they are being feed to help with the task. Hopefully the missing drones, the missing food, the missing bees, and the new frames are enough to get rid of any swarm plans. The Nuc lost some of the older bees to drifting once I opened it but guards are posted at its entrance and I have observed some bees come out for either orientation or cleansing flights and then return.

Favorite Publication Articles

2008-03-10T00:19:00.003-04:00

Time Magazine Decemeber 2007
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1686827,00.html

San Francisco Chronicle - Saturday, January 12, 2008
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/12/HOFKT07IA.DTL

Ready or Not

2008-03-09T20:54:00.003-04:00

The Florida honey flow season is kicked off by Citrus Pollen. It happens to be the one and only pollen I’m allergic too. No need to look at the map or the numbers in Pollen.com, My allergies started acting up this past weekend, and will be acting up for approximately the next 3 weeks. Citrus blooms are here……. pollen count is high but the weather is not great. Another cold front came into Central Florida this weekend.

I wanted to do a full inspection this weekend to make sure there were not swarm queen cells been prepare, but the weather just did not cooperate. Instead I made final preparations for the split. The queen from down under (Australian Queen) should be here later this week.

As soon as the queen arrives, the plan is to:

Make a double screen split
Move Split over TBH if successful OR Bring back together bees if it fails

Here is my split set up. This is the Beemax bottom that came with my Beginners Kit. Is been sitting to the side since I don’t use it. A 2nd screen about ¾ of an inch from the original screen was easily added. The whole set up will sit over my current hive for a few weeks. Just long enough for the new queen to be accepted, and the Nuc to be able to stand on its own.

Feeding Again

2008-02-26T22:17:00.004-05:00

The picture below is just an animated picture. It’s basically pictures (six in this case) layered on each other and animated. I hope it works, click on the picture and click the reload button on the browser to watch it again. It shows my current set up..

The TBH and the hive to the right are waiting on packages or splits. I haven't made up my mind how I'm going to work it all yet, but by the end of this season I hope to have colonies running on all of them plus a support Nuc.

My Citrus allergies began to act up yesterday. I walked over to my trees and sure enough.......Citrus has begun to bloom. Although the pollen count is currently high; I decided to start feeding again due to a cold front approaching. High winds and lower temperatures will not be ideal for the bees to forage.

On the other hand, the colony seems strong and it’s not good to have too many idle bees. A swarm from the colony right now would not be ideal. My prevention effort was to provide more room and work in the form of placing the 1st honey supper of the season.

I simply removed the last wooden frame (no foundation), and placed another plastic foundation frame in what has become my 1.5 hive (1 deep body, 1 medium body). The supper pictured below is now composed of ten plastic frames.

Next I placed a queen excluder, and a medium supper with 9 wooden frames (with starter strips), and in the middle the one full frame I removed from the medium below.

On top of this sits my feeder. Hopefully feeding should maintain the population boom, and give them resources to build comb on these frames. My uneducated guess would say that by mid to late April I should be able to fill some comb honey requests

Holy Cow __________ !!!!!!!

2008-02-24T21:52:00.006-05:00

Holy Cow - look at all the bees, Holy cow - I got stung …..Again!!! Holy Cow - the brood expanded into the medium supper, Holy Cow - here comes the drones, Holy Cow - is that a queen cell????? Holy Cow I think the hives look better painted yellow. Fill in the blank for the title; I couldn’t make up my mind on which one to use.

Let’s begin with the hive’s progress. I think it’s looking awesome for late February. I can not believe how many bees there are. The only frames not drawn out as of today are each of the outside ones on the supper but they are being worked on. Here is a picture of how the deep body looked after I pulled the medium off.

Well, it had been a while since I’d been stung. Looks like I’m building quite the nice immunity to it, or I removed the stinger out of my forearm before I got a good dose of poison. The area is a little sore but there is hardly any swelling. I’m just one more sting away from double digits.

The bees have expanded the brood into the medium supper. I am now the proud keeper of a 1.5 Beehive. This was an intentional move on my part (One deep body and one medium body). The following picture is a beautiful brood pattern (dark Yellow) below capped honey (white), all one of the medium frames. (click to enlarge, and roll mouse over picture for tags)
Now here is a great pattern on a deep frame.

The medium from now on will no longer be a supper; it is now part of the body. I would had preferred to have the medium on the bottom, but I can rotate them next winter when there are less bees to worry about. The pro of a 1.5 hive is a larger work force. The con is that it’s harder to find the queen. So what now??? I’m going to put on the queen excluder and another supper, and then feed one more gallon to help them draw it out. The new supper will be mine to harvest. I built eight wooden medium frames with starter strips. I will place it on as soon as I get home tomorrow from work. It will ease the overcrowding in the hive and give the idle work force something to do. Picture of Idle force below. Here is one of those wedge wooden frames with a starter strip. There are drone cells every where. Drone cells are usually described by everyone as tips of a 22 caliber bullet. According to Michael Bush’s math, the drones will be ready for matting flights in about 2 weeks (if they were to all emerge from their cells tomorrow). My new queen will be here in 3 weeks. Here is something that freaked me out a little. Is a picture of mostly drone cells but notice the larger cell? At 1st I though it may be a new queen cell, meaning the hive could be getting ready to swarm.
After posting the picture on Beesource, all worries were put to rest. One very important thing was pointed out. Queen cells are built vertical, not horizontal. I know that too. Then there was an observation made about how the adjacent cells have not been capped yet, in turn making that lone one look bigger. I should have seen that in my own picture. The Beekeeping forum community is a great asset.

I found my can of yellow paint. I can’t believe I still have 2/3 of paint left; and I can’t believe I actually think everything looks better painted yellow. The TBH looks like it belongs here now.

Click here for all of todays images

Blink and They are Gone

2008-02-19T22:08:00.004-05:00

I will call myself a “Beekeeper” if I’m able to pull off my spring management without much of a snag. I’m fully aware of what is about to take place, the goal of most beehives in spring is to multiply by swarming (old queen and most of the workers leave taking most of the honey crop in search of a new home). What I’m not sure about is the time table MY bees and nature have in mind. Beekeepers in the state can tell me of their usual swarm dates, but their dates don’t necessarily coincide with my area.

I’m very dependent on one single date..... the delivery date of the new queen destined for my split. I’m getting somewhat concerned that the bees may swarm earlier and for all practical purposes jump start the gun.

Here is the reason why. This is the view of the hive on the fist week of January.

The bees sucked dry the feeder over the weekend. The minute it was dry, mold began to grow, and small hive beetles began sneaking in. I decided to remove the feeder to give it a good scrub down, and take a quick look on the progress by just looking down the supper frames. I’m truly amazed at how things can change if you blink at the wrong time. I fed them a total of 3 gallons (1:1 sugar water) for 2 ½ weeks. This was the view of the hive this afternoon.(6 weeks after 1st picture)

Is looking too healthy this early in the year a problem? I need to delay them for less than 4 weeks to the weekend of March 15th. I’m going to postpone feeding for now. I want to literally tear down the hive for a meticulous inspection. I'm going to remove any old queen cells from last year so that there is no confusing any in the next few weeks, and to confirm if they are progressing as good as I think they are, and check brood patterns (drone cells being a priority). I did get some awesome shots today like this one (see them all here)

There are two positives on my side as of now. My queen is about six months old. That's way too young for most queens to think about swarming and so far there are no live drones to be found. New queens need drones to mate. I know that and the bees know that, but blink right now and you can overlook the whole thing.

Side note, my TBH is in place. It needs a landing board, needs to be secure to the stand better, and needs started strips on the bars. I also hate the color, I'm looking for my never ending yellow paint can.

Feeder Inspection

2008-02-09T08:52:00.000-05:00

This is my Beemax top feeder; it was part of my initial beekeepers starter kit. The advantages of having a top feeder:

Ease of inspection – I’ve learned how much my bees will tolerate my presence. It’s also a good idea to learn the signs of when the bees have had enough of it. It’s especially important if, like in the video, you are not wearing any beekeeping defenses.
Quick refill – Lift and pour in the syrup, it doesn’t get any easier than that.
Provide large amount of syrup. – It’s hard to see that there is anything in the feeder. The best sign is when I dip the leaf in it. Believe it or not, there is over ¾ of a gallon in the feeder.
Sloped feeding chamber - Which I noticed for the 1st time while making the video, it’s sloped towards the bee’s feeding area by at least ½ inch. The syrup is always going to flow the proper way.
The bee at the end of the video is one I rescued from one of the water moats. She was flying from behind me coming around my right towards the entrance of the hive. I lifted the top and she flew right into it and then bounced right into one of the back moats. A rescue was the only right thing to do. I ended up placing her and her pollen load (what was left of it) on top of the hive, where she began to dry herself.

Quick review of why I’m feeding.

Create an artificial honey flow to trick the hive into building up before the real natural flow. ( about 4 to 6 weeks away)
My purchased queen should be here the second week of March. At that time the hive should be strong and more than ready for a split. The current hive should have ample time to recover from the split, and be ready for the real honey flow.
The split I’m creating I will try to introduce to my TBH

Advantages can also create disadvantages. Nothing is perfect.

It makes it too easy to inspect which is just an invitation to go intrude, set a camera and video tape.
Notice all the bees at the syrup level. Pour more syrup too fast and all those bees are going to go for a swim.
Large amount of feed is an invitation for everyone like the Small hive Beetle in the video.
I’ve never seen a bee drown in the feeder, but after video taping the one bee struggling to get out, I can see how it could be very possible.

Feed & Feed & Feed

2008-02-07T19:36:00.000-05:00

I figure the wax and honey I saved from my last crush and strain wouldn’t last long. So yesterday I mixed up some 1:1 sugar/water to feed it to the bees today after work.

To make it, you bring 4 cups of water to a slight boil and then stir in 4 cups of sugar, keep boiling until all the sugar is dissolved. You then let it cool overnight before feeding it to the bees. A sample taste test will reveal a syrup tasting mixture. Very different taste as compared to the one produced by just adding sugar to a glass of water.

Today after work I removed the top, lifted the Plexiglas and smoked the feeder with a couple of puffs from my smoker. Within 30 seconds every bee in the top feeder compartment had moved back down into the hive. I quickly removed the Tupperware holding the wax, replaced the top feeder guard, and poured the approximate ¾ of a gallon of feed. Took the bees about two minutes to return and start feeding

This is the left over wax now free of honey.

Now I need to melt and filter it, and maybe use it to attach strips of foundation to the bars of my TBH. The wife wants me to try and make some candles, but my guess is that we would be lucky if there is enough for one.

The Azaleas began blooming 2 to 3 weeks ago, but they had been ignored by every single pollinator (feral bees, bumble bees, native bees) until today. I had noticed tons of activity in past years around them; I just never paid attention to when it began or what the bees collected. There are a few bumble bees and some of my bees buzzing the plants. They seem to be collecting nectar, but the activity has not peaked, not even close.

Let There Be Spring

2008-02-03T22:32:00.000-05:00

OK not for real, but I’m feeding to create an artificial early spring flow, and the high 70 temperatures during the day should help my cause.

This weekend I went out with my new beekeeper assistants and inspiration for the honey label, my 7 year old twin girls. “A” was my photographer, and “B” was my personal assistant. This is what my bee yard looks like right now. The hive on the right is waiting for a package, a split from my hive on the left or maybe a wild swarm to move in. My original hive has a supper that I would guess is now 1/4 full, and on it sits a Beemax top feeder.

It was kind of nice to have a “go-pher”, one who also held tools so I would not have to bend over to pick them up off the ground. It was also great to have a seven year old photographer. A wild imagination and a camera with memory for 400 pictures will get you neat pictures like: My smoker and feed bag (honey and wax from last crush and strain) sitting on my dry bird bath. Standing water (aka bird bath) in Florida is a mosquito breading ground.

The pictures also have a different perspective because of her stature. Like this picture of the open hive. My pictures usually look down into the super. Her picture is a new angle and probably shows my new idea better. The plexiglass provides containment of the bees, and can be move to allow inspection of either side. I thought it worked great and kept the number of bees flying around us to a minimum. I have seen other beekeepers use a pice of wood or a cloth rag.

They both were brave and stood tall as I pulled frames out. We did a small inspection to find out if the brood was expanding into the supper, but it was not to be as the following pictures show. The supper is about ¼ full of honey, no egg laying going on here. At this pace if I make a supper for my NUC, I may be able to split the current supper and let the NUC have some frames of honey. (Pictures by "A")

These last pictures show what I did with the rest of the $10 plexiglass sheet. I took the guard off the top feeder to allow the bee’s better access into what the girls (my kids, not the bees) call the bee’s cafeteria. I think by midweek all the wax is going to be free of honey. At that point I will replace the guard, take my wax, and fill the feeder with 1:1 sugar water. I will continue feeding until March when I’m hoping for a strong hive that I can split.

Spring plan and gearing up for it

2008-01-29T21:20:00.000-05:00

The kids had the day off from school so I stayed home with them, and took advantage of my sort of free time to build my NUC. It took me all day to build a box, but at least it’s done. Well, for the most part, it still needs a few coats of paint. I need to look in the garage to see what sort of paint leftover’s I have.I could have worked on my TBH today but I’m going to need the NUC before I need the TBH…… why??? Spring is fast approaching in Central Florida. We may still get one or two more cold fronts, but they usually just last 2 or 3 days tops.These are my Azaleas and they just began their annual blooming. The odd thing about it is that the bees are completely ignoring these blooms. I remember in past years everyone at home staying away from them due to the bee, and bumble bee activity around them. I just don’t remember when the bees become interested in them, but eventually they do....... that much I’m sure of.

I video-taped the hive entrance for about 30 minutes today. Not a sign of drones, unless you count the dead ones by the entrance. Tons of pollen being brought in by the bees. As far as color there is dark yellow, white, and red color pollen.
So, here is the spring plan that begins this upcoming weekend.

Let the bees clean the honey from the wax I saved from the last crush, and strain. This should begin my artificial flow.
Place the feeder and continue feeding 1:1 sugar water once the bees clean the honey off the wax. Feeding for a total of 6 weeks.
Got an Australian queen on order that is due to arrive the second week of March from Weaver Apiaries out in Texas.

In the second week of March I’m going to do a double screen split. A double screen split consists of placing the split/nuc above the parent hive (hive having been split), with a double screen in between them. The queen stays with the bottom hive, and you give the top enough resources and bees to survive until (A) they make a new queen or (B) they accept a new purchased queen. The goal of the double screen is to split the bees enough to convince them that they are now a new hive, but keep them close enough to allow them to regulate the environment of the dwelling. The two screens should be apart in a way where the bees can’t make physical contact. If, for whatever reason, the split fails the screen is removed and the hive is reunited.Here is the set up.

This is my Beemax bottom that I don’t use due to the scores of ants at my location. It originally comes with a screen bottom. So I made a frame, and placed a second screen. Here is my 1st ever five frame NUC built from scratch. It’s not perfect, but it will do and it will hold. I won't point out my mistakes, but they are rookie and poor planning mistakes. Everything is glued and screwed together. All I will have to do is remove the top of my hive, put the split in the Nuc and place the entire set up on top of the hive with the Nuc’s entrance facing the opposite direction. Stay tuned for how good double screen splits work…

Fight…… Fight…… Fight…… Fight……

2008-01-21T22:32:00.000-05:00

You know it had to be a good fight when someone misplaces their head. I can only offer educated guesses as to why these drones are in front of the hive.

Above - Drone's head on the left been dragged away by the bee, it's body to the right.
Above- lower left bee (fuzzy). Bee dragging head of drone away. Middle, back side of second drone.

Below- Close up of second drone.

Weather had been wonderful for the last few days. Then we get hit by a cold spell.
If the drones are from my hive were they removed to save resources? Not knowing that the cold spell will just last a day or two.
Are they drones from feral hives attempting to come in uninvited for a free meal.

Either way, is good to know that there are young drones in the area already. Spring is around the corner, pollen is coming in, and the number of bees is climbing. I need to keep an eye out for an early swarm, and I need to build my NUCS just in case. When to split is the million dollar question right now. My goal right now but subject to change..... Split Late February early March.

Things as Expected

2008-01-14T00:27:00.000-05:00

The weather was perfect on Saturday, 80 and sunny. It’s the middle of January and I could not ask for better weather to make my 1st inspection of 2008. I have to admit that I was a little hesitant at first, but once I popped the top off it was business as usual, and the bees seemed to vaguely care that I was there.Things appear to be progressing flawlessly. This supper has about 2/3 of honey left,

But believe it or not …… over the winter three of the plastic foundation frames were drawn out about 35% to 40% and right now are mostly capped with honey stores.

There is another cold front moving in this week. It should last just a few days which is the normal winter pattern for Central Florida. I’ll keep an eye on things but I’m sure they won’t be starving any time soon.Still, I do have a few things to worry about. I’m attempting to get a more accurate daily mite count. It seems higher than it was back in November but no where near the critical 60+ count for Florida. In this weather it’s going to take a few weeks to dry any tobacco leaves for a treatment so Mites are something to keep an eye on.Next, as seen in the last picture from right to left, frame #3 is warped which impedes the access to its cells and the adjacent cells of frame #2.Last year the hive ran out of room for the queen to lay eggs. The queen resorted to laying eggs in the burr combs below and above the brood frames. I believe I can see in one of today's pictures a few eggs on the burr comb between the deep and the medium supper. I read of some beekeepers in Florida keeping what they call 1.5 hives………. a deep body and one medium supper. I’ll see what the hive does with the current configuration. If by March they have expanded the brood chamber into the medium, I’ll just let them have it.
Last but not least, the top cover I made last year is also warped. My bees are not fond of a top entrance so they have wasted a lot of resources closing the one created by the wood warping. I replaced it with my old Beemax cover while I clean and try to straighten that one. I’m looking to start feeding the 1st week of February to create an artificial flow and hopefully split no later than the second week of March. The lingering indecision is what to do about a queen for the split. It is almost impossible to purchase one that early.
But first, I need to build the nucs and finish the TBH.

Happy Beekeeping New Year

2008-01-05T22:25:00.000-05:00

All great artists do a self portrait, here is mine contemplating how to place my future hives.

Up until the past week it has been a wet and mild winter in East Central Florida. That all change mid week when we had a few nights in the low 40’s, and a “possible freeze” warning was issued by local meteorologists. Any one from up north digging out of the snow is probably feeling real sorry for me right now, right? Those two days mid week have been the only days I’ve walked up to the hive and there were no signs of bees to be found.
Since I don’t have any previous years of beekeeping experience, I’m not sure if what I’m seeing is normal winter behavior for my area. Right now the data in pollen.com is showing a spike in pollen for my area. The predominant pollen: Cedar/Juniper, Elm and Maple, are providing a steady flow of pollen into the hive.

I took the following pictures to prove that there is pollen coming in and I’m not nuts.

I’m observing just two noticeable differences between summer and winter in the bee’s behavior and the hive activity.

First, the bees seem to be more lethargic. Their passion for the job and their urgency as they come and go is half of what I noticed on summer days. Still, they are coming and going.
Second, there are far less bees visible. The landing board is not congested with bees during the day, but on a nice mild afternoon it still may get crowded

Aside from these two things it seems like business as usual for a smaller amount of slower bees. Even the ants are slacking. A bee carcass in summer usually doesn’t last more that a few hours before the ants are hauling it away. Now it lies below the hive for days

It has been over a month since I last opened the hive and I’m hoping next week the weather will be in the 70’s with clear skies. The temperature is warm enough to open the hive right now, but the skies are overcast with on again off again rain showers. I’m curious to see how much of the honey stores have been used so far. I’m optimistic they don’t need an emergency feeding; I just want to satisfy my curiosity of how things are progressing up to this point.
My Spring Management kick start date is fast approaching. A mid to late February feeding should prematurely stimulate the hive, and allow me to create a NUC (nucleus hive, consisting of five frames) by late March. If all goes well and I’m able to follow the plan by Mr. Jamie Ellis, PhD (Assistant Professor of Entomology Department of Entomology and Nematology University of Florida), I should have a strong hive and a strong NUC by my spring flow in April.

I should have started by building a couple of NUC bodies, but instead I wanted to start building my Top Bar Hive. I’m still undecided on how to proceed with my planned NUC, and my two 3lb packages of bees + queen arriving early May.
My dilemma is that I can’t make up my mind about what order to populate/create a hive, a NUC, and a TBH. I’ve got a few ideas but they change by the day, so right now I’ll just play it by ear and wait and see.
I decided to keep a very accurate record of the hive(s) since I want more than one. It includes the frame types and the age, queen age, and hive productivity.

Building the TBH

2008-01-05T21:57:00.002-05:00

Here is a slide show of my Progress on the TBH

Feb 2008, I got the paint from the Oops shelf at Home Depot. $5.00 for the gallon. I didn't realize how good it match the shed until I stood back. I hate the color, Looking for my can of yellow paint. Also, notice I did away with the peak roof and decided to keep it simple and flat. The split ont he roof made it hard to seal for rain.

I previously have written a little on Top Bar Hives. TBH’s is just another subject in which I have no personal experience at all. I’m well read in the subject and have enough knowledge to really not know anything. With that said, here are my plans for my TBH, and below are some of the progress and some steps on how I’m building it. First I should give credit where credit is due. The base for my plans came from http://www.biobees.com/ - Check them out, great site “about sustainable, chemical-free, small-scale, 'organic' beekeeping, using simple equipment that almost anyone can make at home.” Hey!!!!!! They are right; I am building it myself at home. Also, check out http://www.bwrangler.com/bee/index.html for information that leads me to my conclusions about what I think might work for me. Finally, to Mike for his constructions tips, and discussions on the subject… It helps to solve problems and make improvements when you discuss things with someone interested in the subject. What I have concluded is:

Florida beekeepers keep one deep brood in Florida - So a smaller TBH should work better here. I’m building the smaller 36” version and I’ve modified the trapezoid dimensions to give me a volume slightly larger than a deep box hive.
Hot and humid weather means more ventilation required – building a screen bottom and adding vent holes to roof
Extra help required to deal with Small Hive Beetles - Building inspection drawer/ trap drawer
How to provide support - Roof will be split to allow me to place a medium supper or place a NUC above it to provide drawn out frames of pollen, honey, or brood from my Lang
Use it to support my Langs. The measurements of the Top bars will allow the top bars to be placed in standard Deep body hives.

Beemax Material Research

2007-12-20T23:44:00.000-05:00

A reader left a comment on my Sept. 10, 2007 Post "New Toys". It reads "Beemax are made of polystyrene and a componant is styrene which has been banned in several states. It is known that it causes cancer in animals and nerve disorders in humans." Thank you who ever you are for bringing this up to me.

You know!! it made me think ........ I should had done some research on what exactly is Polystyrene. So better late than never .. here is my research.

Note : these are my online findings, research, and conclusion. What do I know. Key words in RED.
First my conclusion:

Had I done this research before buying the Beemax hives, I still would had gone ahead and bought them.
Polystyrene - Styrofoam take out containers ARE Polysterine with injected air. Remember those Styrofoam containers from the 80's that kept the hot part hot and the cold part cold of a Big mac??? Well, that's what Beemax hives are made out off. Now, Styrene is a component of Polystyrine, but you have to melt Polystyrine to get the Styrene out. Like any burning plastic, burning it will produce noxious fumes. SO DON"T BURN and inhale BEEMAX HIVES or any other plastic
Now, Expanded Polystyrene (Styrofoam Fast food food containers and carry out containers) have been band in several states, but not because they are potential carcinogens, rather because it takes a long long long time in landfills to decompose. "The health effects caused by consuming polystyrene when it migrates from food containers (primarily from a leaching caused by heat exchange) into food is under serious investigation" (Wikipidia) . Just Like cell phone use, grilling on the BBQ, laptops on your lap, the sun, eating too much of this or not enough of that, etc etc.

My research Starting with -

Styrene : "also known as vinyl benzene as well as many other names , is an organic compound with the chemical formula C6H5CH=CH2. Under normal conditions, this aromatic hydrocarbon is an oily liquid. It evaporates easily and has a sweet smell, although common impurities confer a less pleasant odor. Styrene is an important precursor to polystyrene, an important synthetic material." "Styrene is named after the styrax trees from whose sap (benzoin resin) it can be extracted. Low levels of styrene occur naturally in plants as well as a variety of foods such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, beverages, and meats. " " Health effects
Styrene is a toxin, an irritant, and a potential carcinogen.(Wikipidia)

Polystyrene : "is an aromatic polymer made from the aromatic monomer styrene, a liquid hydrocarbon that is commercially manufactured from petroleum by the chemical industry. Polystyrene is a thermoplastic substance, normally existing in solid state at room temperature, but melting if heated (for molding or extrusion), and becoming solid again when cooling off.".(Wikipidia)

Early Santa Visit and 2008 Beekeeping Plan/Goals

2007-12-18T00:46:00.000-05:00

I was a very good boy too, but first things first. I have to thank my good friend and running partner Patti for the Blog slogan... “Bees give a natural Buzz ……” I actually had been looking for something to use in the blog and as my signature in the forums. I think Patti was just trying to be funny, but I like it and I’m going with it.

How did I get my present so early? Simple …. When you tell the wife you want bee stuff for X-mas she’ll most likely say order it. The trick is to make sure you order some big items. When it comes in just ask her if you can have it now or does she want to wrap it and put it under the tree!!!!!! Trust me, last thing she’ll want to do is wrap that huge box, and first thing she’ll want is the bee stuff out of the house.

It was a good day and a disappointing one. Good because I got my new PLASTIC HIVE STAND/VENTILATED BOTTOM BOARD and a new Beemax super from Dandant. All the parts for my second hive are now in. Here are a few pictures of the base unassembled and assembled. I like the base and trust it to control my number one bee problem – Florida carpenter ants. It has a partial screen board exactly where the bees keep their brood nest. The whole base slopes into the screen area and down into the inspection drawer. The partial screen is made for unobstructed ventilation to help with the hot and humid Florida weather. Personally, I think it has two draw backs, one is correctable.(Picture below is stand from behind with inspection drawer partially out)

The ventilation holes are large enough for some bees to squeeze out of them, when and if the entrance is closed off. Not a good feature if one wishes to move the hive.
The side squirts are not wide enough to hide the moats. Bees accidentally fall and drown in it when they are out bearding, or if they misjudge their approach pattern with a full pollen/nectar load. The problem is easily corrected by gluing or bolting on a 1 inch strip of wood to the side lengths.

(Picture below shows side moats)

Link to more pictures of my stand

Why disappointing?? I have been doing some research and planning on the best method of obtaining new bees to stock the new hive and the TBH. I finally ordered two 3lbs packages from Rossman Apiaries, but I though about it for too long, and my delivery is not scheduled until early May. With a May delivery, I’m going to completely miss the best Florida months for beekeeping. Oh well, live and learn.

The beekeeping goals and plan for 2008:

Self sustaining by years end - Two Lang hives, One Top Bar Hive (TBH), and One Nuc to support them.
Split current hive by late March, early April.

If I can get a queen via the mail, then re-queen the split, and place above the TBH to stock it. Otherwise…
Allow Nuc to raise its own queen and, if successful, allow it to grow into a full Lang or use it to support the May delivery of packages

With the arrival of the new bee stock in early May if Nuc is ready to provide support of drawn frames with capped brood.

Install one package in Lang with 1 or 2 frames of brood from Nuc
Install second package in the TBH

OR If the Split is well on its way to becoming a good colony

Install one package in TBH
Install second package into a Nuc

Why we live in Florida - Dec 1st Activity

2007-12-05T22:50:00.000-05:00

Coldest weather of the season arrived this past weekend. Lows in the low 50's and high in the upper 70's, Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

I couldn't even put a entrance reducer right now, it would just create a traffic jam at the entrance.

I took some silly short videos. I’ve said it before, I think video is a good way to observe behavior and to look out for heavy Varroa infestations or signs of other parasites / diseases.Observations from the video

"IN" Traffic keeps to the bottom of the landing board. "OUT" Traffic exits above and upside down. That really keeps things moving
Not a big flow of resources, but there is still a flow of pollen and nectar. Not bad for early December. It’s mostly nectar in the morning and as the day progresses pollen increases. That’s due to the simple reason that later in the day, the sun dries up the nectar in the flowers.
The loud noise you hear over the bee’s buzzing are cicada’s. If you think they are loud now, you should hear them in the summer.

Also visible in the video is my latest modification. I extended the side skirt with some wood and liquid nails (light brown stuff you see). It hides the moats on the sides completely under the hive. This equates to less bees drowning in the moat. I noticed that bees coming in fast and heavy at certain angles (directly from behind --> perpendicular to the entrance) from the field would sometimes miscalculate their approach and come up short just to land and drown in the moat. The wood skirt extension greatly relieves the problem of drowning bees. Still, in the front moats there are 4 to 6 bees drowning per week. I finally observed why .................. bees that are dying, worked their wings off or for whatever reason can't fly back, make an attempt to walk back with their last field load. Only to be denied returning to the hive by the moats. I find a few bees now and then dying or dead just hanging on the side wall of a moat. Cruel thing but maybe, just a theory, it may be for the best of the colony. Bees walking back may give microbes/parasites/diseases a change to hop on and be taken into the hive. But that’s just a theory.

The following video was taken the same day but in the afternoon. The angle is different simply to allow the light to be behind the camera. Notice the increase of pollen compare to the morning video.

Top Bar Hive (TBH)

2007-12-05T21:37:00.000-05:00

This document is my final draft (very rough) of some of my ideas, rules, and basic sketches for my Top Bar Hive Design. I'll finalize it the day I'm done building it.

The standard beekeeper has Langstroth hives. Invented in 1860 by, Rev. Lorenzo Langstroth. Their convenience allows a beekeeper with multiple number of Langstroth hives, to move components from hive to hive. Allowing keepers to easily combine weak hives or split strong ones. We (yes, I'm including myself) may also buy components from different makers with no worries about them not been compatible.

So what does a beekeeper do to stand out of the crowd? (As if beekeeping wasn't enough ?)

Well ...... aside from letting your 6 year olds pick the hive color and decorate it. In my opinion, build and design a Top Bar Hive (TBH).

TBH vs. Langstroth is probably one of the biggest discussions among beekeepers. I read that they both have their pro's and cons. I can't deny or verify any, maybe in a few years. I think is thrilling to have the chance to design and build my own Hive.

A couple of Questions to answer between hive styles :

Which hive is easier to manage
Which hive is stronger (bee number), more productive (Honey production), and healthier(less Varroa mites)

Influences of my TBH design

Be able to interchange frames from my Lang to the TBH, and vice-versa. This feature should comply with the Florida beekeeper rule of using standard size frames.
Sloped sides. To me is a completely esthetic feature. Required or not, I want sloped sides
Length is dictated by the Florida heat and humidity.
Must be able to supper it

These are my Favorite TBH sites, I'm incorporating a lot of ideas from these sites into my own, and learning a lot from their posted knowledge.
This is my Favorite TBH Site, very informative site. I love the building procedures from this site, my favorite TBH blog, and this one has got to be the best looking TBH I seen online. I hope mine looks that good one day.

Pollen Count (March 31 - 2008 )

2007-12-05T20:49:00.004-05:00

Help your self to the data from the spread sheet HERE
The blue line is the statistical trend of the data.

Personal observation - Rainfalls drop the Pollen Ccount for aproximately One Day. The heavier the rain fall (Volume), the lower the pollen count number.

It’s a White Thanksgiving

2007-11-18T21:58:00.000-05:00

I set up the video camera to record how I opened the hive, and dusted it and the bees with powdered sugar. It is my last treatment for Varroa mites. I hated the video, actually hated the sound of my voice in the video. My wife agreed, she said I sound like a goober. So instead of video I’m did a slide show. (Link to slide show)

I do have some video of the hive after I dusted it today. Is a little boring, but is the best way to get a feel for the sound of the hive. It either captivates people, or it makes the hair on the back of their neck stand up.

It took the bees all day to clean the outside of the hive, and before dusk I gave them a hand by watering away large clumps of sugar. I didn’t want to feed the ants or any other animals over night.

This most likely is the end of the inspections until next February. I may inspect once a month from now on just to keep them used to my presence and the intrusions. I also want to keep the hive components from becoming glued together to the point where it’s going to take a hammer and chisel to get them apart. I need to ask the experts about this.

Mid Novemebr and pollen is still coming in, and today I personally saw them colleting it from my FireBush. There is red and yellow pollen been brought in. I have no idea where the yellow is coming from. There also seems to be a return of the Small Hive Beetle, not in the hive, but in the trap/drawer. I'm trying to see if the drawer is as effective with out the bait.

There were some local events that reminded me why I decided to be anonymous. Personally, I think both sides are a little irrational. First, trying to keep nine hives in a residential neighborhood is a little over the top, but the neighbor claiming to have had her children swarm by bees is an ……….(if you can’t say something nice about a person, don’t say anything my mom always said). Her ignorance on the subject is visible with statements like "We are concerned for our safety -- for the safety of our children and for our property value," neighbor Nancy Aumuller said. "Who would want to live next to someone who has bee hives?"
Nancy, bees don’t swarm children unless you roll them in honey. Local Channel 6 story , My local paper, and the world wide web

But, life goes on and this is an educational blog. Hopefully people may learn something new about honey bees that they didn’t know, andforget about Hollywood movies about killer bees.

My Honey Label

2007-11-13T23:31:00.000-05:00

I really didn’t put much thought into the label. It sort of fell together on its own. You may recognize the angels. They are part of a painting that is fairly well known in advertising and gift shop items among other things. It is a painting by the Italian High Renaissance artist Raffaello Santi, circa 1512-1514. (Wikipidia entry) What most people don’t know and you may have missed it a few lines above; the angels are part of a painting, a very small part of the Sistine Madonna.
Six years ago with the birth of my kids (twins), I had it tattooed on my shoulder along with the kid’s initials assigned to each of the angels.
Again, I borrowed the painting for my honey label. Photo shopped the mural option to the background, added the bee in the direction to which the angels are looking. The bee picture is one of my bees working the Hyacinth plant. I took it a few months ago, and photo shopped it until it looked more like a painting than a picture. The Pure Local Honey well …….. do I really need to explain ?? “A” & “B” are my kids initials. Yes, “A” was born before “B”. We live in Melbourne, and the number on the bottom right is my official Florida Beekeeper registration number. Voila – I have a honey label.

Sweet, Sweet Golden Mess

2007-11-11T00:22:00.001-05:00

This was an exciting and slightly painful weekend. I’m going to first brag, and then I’ll document things from the beginning.

The weather has been incredible; pollen is trickling in at a slow but steady pace. So…… I robbed a frame out of the supper yesterday.
(Apology: If you know who I am, and I didn’t share one of these 8 oz jars with you, please don’t take it personally!!! There will be enough to go around next April - I promise!!!!!!)

Almost mid November!!!!!! This is awesome. The kids and I are hooked on comb honey now, and I found out my wife has never been a big honey fan!!!!! 17 years of marriage and now I find this out?????

Ok, now that I’ve bragged, let me document the weekend. First, I need to up the sting count to a total of eight. I had some spare time late Friday and wanted to take some really up close shots of the entrance. Well, I found out how close is too close. I got it right on my index knuckle while trying to retrieve the tripod away from the entrance. These are my hands today, yesterday it was slightly bigger. No biggie, swelling is my normal reaction to a bee sting. The reactions seem to be getting less intense, and shorter in duration as I reach double sting digits.

Late in the week I observed a half hearted effort by the hive to remove the drones. I mean half hearted because it seemed like there is just one bee assigned to dragging them out. The drones just try to hold on to anything they can as the worker drags them out. After a short struggle both bees hit the ground in front of the hive. The worker takes a break after the wrestling match. The drone turns around and flies back in passed the entrance guards. Every 4 minutes the sequence repeats itself. I can’t tell if the same worker is dragging out the same drone.

I wanted to remove the medium supper, inspect the brood in the deep body, remove a frame from the supper and dust everything with confectioner powder sugar. It was a good plan but poor execution on my part. I was able to break the seal between the hive bodies, but I couldn’t take them apart. Too many of the frames on the super were stuck to the deep frames. As I tried to lift the super, I could see frames on the deep pull out too. So I decided to rob the honey frame I had in mind and rearrange the super for the 3rd time. I replaced the frame I took with a plastic foundation frame, and grouped liked frames with each other. This WILL be the last time I reconfigure the super. Rearranging the super broke enough burr comb between the deep so that I could now remove the super. This is how the super is configured, and will remain till next spring
(Picture on the left is after the inspection) I noticed that the bees were busy closing the top entrance. So I did away with it. I'll try next summer to see if they want or need it.

I inspected half the frames in the deep body. It appears the middle frames have a lot of burr comb under them, as seen in the picture. This is frame 6(E). Inside the red circle is the brood. Typical football shape. Between the yellow and the red lines are the pollen stores. Outside the yellow line are the honey stores. Below the blue line is the burr comb. All burr comb seems to have honey stores.This is the west side of the same frame. There is a good laying pattern but it seems like it is finally slowing down. If it wasn’t for the burr comb on the bottom of the frames, things would look almost perfect. It was time to button things up, and go try some honey. It wasn’t until I was putting all my tools away that I noticed the powder sugar sitting inside the shed. DO’H!!!! Oh well, next week. I won't inspect, just dust them with the confectioners sugar.

Once I figure out a good method to get honey I'll post my steps. Things went OK, but it could had been much better and faster. Here is the comb from the frame I took. Why are there two slabs??? It seems like the comb was started on each end of the frame. Instead of meeting in the middle both ends were overlapped by at least 6 inches. From the slight stomachache, and what I bottled, my guess is that we got 80 ozs from the one frame. Two of those jars are comb honey per the kids request.

Cross view of the honey comb

Crush and strain.

Bounty for the day.

Another Learning Week

2007-11-05T20:32:00.000-05:00

1st, check out fellow beekeeper and co worker Mike. Early November and he's extracting honey. I'm so jealous I may rob one frame from mine next weekend.

Anyway, seems like there is something to learn every week. This weekend I took half a day on Saturday to attend the Florida State Beekeepers Association 87th convention in Winter Haven.

I took a couple of classes on the proper methods of doing a hive inspection. It was kind of neat to have the inspector pull out a frame loaded with bees, point out the queen, and pass the frame around to everyone. When it was handed to me all I could think was: "Lord, please don't let me drop this frame in front of everyone, look like a fool, and make the bees angry". The time we all took to make sure we had a good grip during the hand off makes me think we all felt the same way. I learned that I shouldn't inspect the hive as I dismantle it. Instead, it should first be dismantle down to the brood chamber, inspect it and then inspect the suppers as the hive is reassembled.

I also took classroom classes on Nucs and splits . Follow link for the best paper on The Advantages of Using Nucs, by Jamie Ellis, PhD. Also took his class on how to wisely use the Florida Management Calendar, and finally a class on the Migration of Africanized Bees in Florida.

The agricultural dept of Florida recommends that beekeepers not catch swarms of feral bees. The explanation is long and I don't think I could do it justice, but I'm a convert. Africanized bees are slowly diluting the feral honey bee population and slowly converting it over. They are completely adapted to do it.

Only disappointing thing from the convention was the lack of interest every one seems to have in organic beekeeping methods. Not that I want to be Mr. Organic. After all, I use plastic foundation instead of natural comb and BeeMax Polystyrene Hives instead of wooden hives. I just think a balance between the two methods would be more advantageous for hobbyist.

Speaking of organic treatments, yesterday (Sunday) I went ahead with the last of my tobacco smoke outs. Before smoking the hive I cleaned out the collection drawer and the mite average was still one/day, but the Small Hive Beetle number jumped up again. Below is the four day catch (Wed -> Saturday). From top to bottom: Four Mites, looks like seven but after zooming in three of the spots turned out to be just debris like the toothpick I left there, I used it to moved things around.Fifty Small Hive Beetle, give or take a few. That was a normal number during the summer and luckily they never seemed to get up in the hive.They are laying on some left over window screen that I use as a filter.

I checked the trap today, and after two days the SMH are down to normal (just 3). Since the weather has turned cooler I'm not sure if that has affected their reproduction cycle, or the tobacco smoke sort of camouflages the smell of the hive and they can't find it. That’s something to keep in mind and investigate later.The Mite count from Sunday night to Monday afternoon was 6. So obviously the tobacco has some effect on the mites. Below is a close up of one. I have gotten pretty good at spotting them in the tray, but I still use the macro lens to confirm.

Next week, inspection, and powder sugar shake (last step of treatment for Varroa Mite ).

Honey Anyone?

2007-10-29T23:08:00.000-04:00

I can’t wait till next year when I will hopefully have some answers to all of my beekeeping questions.

Questions like - When is the bee population going to start declining for winter? It is a little nerve racking to see so many bees, and then come to a conclusion that the hives peak populations are during springs and summers!!!!!!

My goal yesterday was to smoke the hive with more tobacco smoke, part two of my Varroa treatment. I also wanted to check the honey stores on the top medium super and take a look at the deep hive body.
This is the hive without the top. I rearranged again and removed another frame. This time I took out a plastic frame to give the bees even more room to draw out another wooden frame. By all estimates, there is enough honey to take the hive through two winters. The picture shows my current super configuration. The plastic frames are drawn out and capped from 60 to 80%. The inside wooden frames are drawn out and capped 100% percent. The outside ones are currently being worked on.

Then here is my deep body. I pulled just one frame out of it; by the time I worked my way down here the bees were working themselves into a wild frenzy. A frenzy created by all the spilled honey from frames pulled apart for inspection, and from spilled honey out of bur comb that I cleaned off. I cleaned bur comb like the one in the picture below. It also happens to be Frame 9 of the hive body with more capped honey.

After removing the medium super, I placed it on my frame storage container (trash can). My hope was to keep any honey from falling to the ground and attracting ants. A lot of honey did drip on the lid. I decided to leave it all for the bees to clean. At first the bees seemed to be glad the inspection was over. They were more interested in repairing my damage, salvaging the spilled honey,

and stepping out of the top entrance for some fresh air. Within 20 minutes it turned into a mad feeding frenzy. I need to take note of this when I have multiple hives. Open feeding by the hives is definitely not a good idea. The weakest hive is going to get robbed. Regardless, I couldn’t have done a better job cleaning the mess. Only thing left was the bur wax, which by the time the bees moved off the ants moved in. Darn things were trying to make off with my wax!!!!! I’m collecting all this bur wax for future uses such as coating the top bars in the Top Bar hive (TBH)
Good inspection and good picture day. The link will take you to my favorite pics from yesterday. I counted four Varroa mites in the trap. I last inspected for them on Wednesday, so I have a great average of 1/day. Florida threshold before chemical intervention is 60/day. The Small hive beetle count is down to about 10 per week, if you don't count big mama here. Look at the size of this so call Small Hive Beetle.
Next week is step three of the Varroa treatment. More tobacco smoke with out an inspection.

Varroa Mite

2007-10-22T21:06:00.000-04:00

Well, I can now say I have seen mites in my hive. Bee lesson for today, assume every hive has mites. I think this is one beekeeper experience I could had done with out ……… it’s a little depressing. On my previous blog entry I described how I smoked the bees with tobacco smoke. By the way, I smoked them at 5PM and went to bed at midnight still feeling the nicotine head rush. I’ve never been a smoker, what can I say.

I came home from work today and went to check the drawer of my hive stand. The suckers are small and my eye sight is not what it used to be. I took some pictures of the drawer after pulling it out.

This is what I saw; the macro lens is my microscope.

My next step was to pour the oil from the drawer, along with its contents over 3 paper towels. I picked out the suspicious shapes and took some more pictures.

This is a digitally enhanced version of the same picture. Compare then to the shape of the Mites in this picture from Wikipidia They can't be anything else but mites.

At least the Small hive Beetles are disappearing…just 8 in the trap for the whole week. That was how many would fall in a single day a month ago.

Six mites total. The purpose of a screen bottom (like I have) is to allow any mites to fall out of the hive that may lose their grip or get groomed off. Since I really never looked for them in the drawer, and they are hard to spot; have there been mites in the trap all along or did they fall off due to my tobacco smoke?? I will try and monitor the drawer daily for the rest of the week, and continue my planned treatment. Most keepers use a sticky paper to trap them but I left a shallow layer of vegetable oil to drown them.

Take Ten, and Smoke Them if You Have Them

2007-10-21T23:04:00.000-04:00

The last few days have been somewhat overcast with light on and off rain sprinkles, and it appears the fall honey flow is over. Therefore the hive appears to be business as usual at a lower pace. I decided today would be a good day to start my four step Varroa treatment because there should be a lot of bees staying home.

I have not seen any signs of Varroa in the hive, but all the beekeepers recommend a yearly treatment. It seems that they all assume that there will always be some level of Varroa infestation.

My organic treatments consist of smoking the bees with tobacco smoke on three separate occasions (once a week), followed by dusting confectioner’s powder sugar all over the hive. This is most likely an impossible treatment method for a beekeeper with hundreds of hives, but perfect for the casual organic beekeeping hobbyist. Here are a few picture of my now storage/honey house/tobacco drying shed located in my bee yard. On the left my second hive for next spring, and spare suppers. In the middle a new trash can holding my frames. 10 deep plastic frames, 10 medium plastic, and 10 wooden with starter strip frames. Next weeks tobacco leaves drying in the rafter. Why smoke it with tobacco? The nicotine in the smoke should make the mites dizzy, like a teenager smoking his fist cigarette, and hopefully loosen their grip and they fall off.

Why three times?? To allow any mites in capped cells to emerge and get at least one treatment

Why the powder sugar?? Is the equivalent of the mites trying to walk on marbles, slipping and falling out of the hive via the bottom screen. The mess it creates should trigger a thorough house cleaning from the bees, and trigger self grooming for the bees. Either one should help reduce the mite population if any. The sugar also feeds the bees.

The video below is while I smoked the bees. I had a hard time keeping the tobacco leaves lit, so the hissing sound you hear in the video is me stepping back and blasting the smoker with the blow torch. The smoker sounds out of the picture is while I'm blowing smoke in the top entrance. I’m not sure there is an easy way to be 100% positive that this, or any treatment works. I mean if the hive never succumbs to a mite infestation, there is no way to be positive that my treatments are the reason. Could be there are no mites in my area; the bees may be a good Varroa resistant breed; or just pure luck. One thing is for sure, if Varroa symptoms appear, my treatments didn’t work.

Is the idea of using tobacco solid??? I think so. Notice the bees at minute -1:15 come out to groom each other, and they fall off the landing board as if they were drunk. Oh let me just say it, I’ve been dying to. It’s as if they are STONED. BUT trust me; it is simple home grown tobacco. No worries, the bees flew back in. Also, I’m feeling the effects of the tobacco. I feel like the kid that gets caught smoking by his Dad, and Dad makes him smoke the whole pack to teach him a lesson. If the tobacco smoke affected the bees and me, most likely it did the mites too. OK, let’s just hope their symptoms went away faster than mine did, and there are no permanent effects.

During dinner my wife commented it was like sitting next to an old cheap cigar. I felt like one too, so a shower followed.

What a Mess

2007-10-14T23:49:00.000-04:00

Unfortunately, I lost the best pictures of my inspection. I knew the memory stick in the digital camera was acting up. I made a point of getting a new one, but I didn't use it. I just didn’t want to give up on the old one. I'll have to explain what I observed this weekend. First, I noticed a lot of idleness from the hive.

I don’t know if the bees prefer green, or if the bees were fooled by the kids painted flowers. I came out at 10AM to inspect the hive and this is what I saw. It sort of proves my point about the hive being too idle.

I pried off my new wooden home made top cover. If it has any draw backs, I would say it is it’s weight. It may just be that I'm use to the Beemax heavy as a feather components.

Looking down into my medium supper, I started to realize why the hive is idle. The hive is, I believe, honeybound (Full of Honey). The top medium super has alternating plastic frames with plastic foundation, and wooden frames with a small wooden starter guide. The bees worked their way up drawing comb on the middle plastic frame. Then jumped out to the adjacent wooden frames, and drew out their own natural size honey combs. The natural comb was violating the ever so critical bee space. In other words, the combs on the wooden frames are big, so big that the adjacent plastic frames were too close to build comb on them. So with the supper 80% full, technically there was no space to store anything else.
I did some quick thinking, and recalled reading beekeepers sometimes space their supper frames out to fit just nine. So my solution was to remove the outer most wooden frame that had not been worked on yet. Leave the supper with just 9 frames and then spread the remaining frames so the bees can utilize both sides of the remaining frames. I decided that a picture is worth a thousand words. (see graphic explanation) My next inspection should reveal even more honey, and a heavier supper. My plan in two weeks is to simply remove the supper (nothing but honey by then) by pass it and do an inspection of the hive body. Today's lessons are: Fact 1 - with no cell guide (plastic foundation), bees will draw out a cell size they seem fit for the job. Fact 2 - Natural Honey storage cells are larger. Conclusion : plastic or not, foundation or foundationless, bees will draw anything out. Mixing frames types may not be such a hot idea.

Compare this picture to the first one in the post. The increase in space reflects the increase in activity. Notice that more bees seem to have gone out to work this morning. More honey stores give the colony a better chance to make it to spring with minimal intervention from the beekeeper.

I'm still puzzle at the lack of activity out of the top entrance. I see maybe one bee per minute coming and going from it.

Found this spider not too far from the hive, very cool looking Black and Yellow Argiope female

Fall Management

2007-10-14T22:43:00.000-04:00

Is mid October, and the Florida Bee Forums are finally talking about getting the bees ready for winter. The Fall management steps will ensure a healthy and productive hive come spring, and the survival of the hive during winter

Re-queen if necessary. – The hive did an emergency supercedure a few months back (raised a new queen). From the egg laying I have seen, I’m sticking with her. She may technically be a mutt (not breed by an expert for desirer qualities), but is my mutt and is from a proven local stock.
Varroa mite treatment – The mite is a very dangerous parasite for bees, and the main source for a pronounce impact on the US bee industry. As an organic beekeeper, my goal is to knock/kill the mites off the bees with out chemicals. I should have very little to worry about this year. A broken brood cycle is one of the best mite control methods. Inadvertently, the hive had a broken brood cycle while it was raising a new queen. I have also observed a very good grooming behavior from the bees. In the weeks to come I will implement two organic Control methods. I’ll smoke them with tobacco (isn't nicotine a chemical ?? Oh well), and sprinkle the hive with confectioners powder sugar .
Sufficient food stores – the bees must collect enough food to last them till next February. 80% of the medium supper is full of honey. Good stuff too. I couldn’t help having a taste when I broke some cells as I was doing my inspection.

Great Weather if you are a Duck

2007-10-08T22:42:00.000-04:00

But not so hot if you happen to be a bee. Florida has had a different sub tropical depression spinning off the Atlantic coast, one per week for the last 3 weeks. Sub tropical depression is just a lot of rain and wind coming from the ocean. I’m just glad it’s not more hurricanes. The weekend was overcast with winds at 20mph, gusting to 30mph. Needless to say the bees were not out and about much. Below is the hive at 3PM on Sunday. I have never seen it like this early in the afternoon. The entrance was crowded and any sudden movement was sending them off into a momentary frenzy. I guess this is probably bee cabin/hive fever. NO WAY was I opening the hive this weekend.
It’s been a few weeks since I replaced the top cover and created a top entrance. I still have never seen any bees come in or out of it. Guards are on duty by it, but no one uses it. This picture was taken moments before the previous picture of the bottom entrance.

Here is my usual four day Small Hive Beetle collection - all drowned in vegetable oil. The lure is made of ½ cup apple cider vinegar, ¼ cup sugar, one cup water and ripe banana peel cut up fine or ground. Combine and let ferment before placing in the trap. I think every beekeeper down south knows this recipe by heart now. Up till now I was just turning around and dumping the contents of the trap by the hive. Big mistake, the ants were having a good old time feeding on all the dead beetles, and what ever else falls out of the hive into the tray.

I figured that no matter where I would dump the dead beetles, the ants and what ever else would find them. Didn’t really want to dump all the vegetable oil in my trash can, suddenly it occurred to me. Feed them to the egg laying garbage disposals. Chickens will eat anything. I made the mistake once of feeding them left over rice on a paper plate. I returned 30 minutes later to pick up the plate, and they had completely eaten it too. Boy was I right; the chickens love the beetles, the vegetable oil, and what ever else happens to be in there. Finally making some use of those darn annoying SHB.

First Day of fall

2007-09-23T18:55:00.000-04:00

----- For all of today's pictures; click here ---------

The experienced beekeepers in Florida are waiting for the fall honey flow. This is the time when Florida hives collect their winter stores. For weeks I have been reading in beekeepers forums how everyone up north is buttoning up their hives preparing and planning for the winter. Here in Florida the 1st day of fall means no more low to mid 90’s temperature…bring on the upper 80’s.

Due to the heat, the high humidity, and the anticipated honey fall flow; I gave my hive a new top that implements an upper entrance. The hot humid weather equates to the bees having to fan the hive in an attempt to move fresh air in. I also wanted an easier time prying the top cover off the hive during inspections. The Beemax top fits incredibly snug and it is impossible to insert the hive tool between the top and the hive body to pry them apart. The picture shows the inserts in place to create the top entrance (click on any picture for larger view), I can also pull them out to eliminate the entrance. It telescopes out and down on two sides and incorporates a landing path on the front when open, and in the back it allows me to insert my hive tool between it and the hive body.

Today was not a good day for pictures, the sky was overcast (slow

shutter speeds on the camera) and light rain sprinkles were on and off the whole day. Here is a picture of the main hive body after the medium supper was removed. I wanted to explain what I mean when I say Frame 1, 2, 3, 6 or 10. The picture is taken as I’m standing behind the hive and from right to left is frame 1 to 10. The hive’s entrance faces south, and frame 1 is to the West. Each frame has two sides, so each frame has an east face and a west face. Two weeks ago I inspected frames 6 to 10. Today I wanted to take a look at the other side.

I have never seen the queen aside from a partial picture of her abdomen two weeks ago. I still haven’t seen her but I see tons of her work. First, Frame 1 East: Capped Honey (top), pollen (scatter reddish cells), uncapped nectar (uncapped nectar = pre honey) Frame 2 East and West are almost carbon copies, capped honey (top) and uncapped nectar. Frame 3 has me a little worried, not because of the tons of uncapped brood but because it is warping. Warped frames are not easy to remove or insert.

The surprise of the day was on the underside of frame 4. I knew two weeks ago the queen had no room to lay another single egg which was why I added the medium supper. The new space didn't stop the bee's plan to solve the space problem. Their solution was to draw comb underneath frame 4 where about ¾ of those cells had eggs in them. I didn’t know what else to do but remove the mess and freeze the wax for future use. After I closed the hive it dawned on me that I have never removed frame 5. Oh well, there will be another day.

A quick look at the medium supper before closing the hive revealed the winner between plastic frames and foundationless wooden frames. With out foundation the comb is drawn from the top down. So it might not be a fair contest since the bees seem to be slowly moving up.

It was a good inspection day unless you count the sting on the back of my thigh (Sting count is now 7). It happened as I turned my back on the hive to place the smoker down. Little bugger got me good, my leg has swollen from mid thigh to just past the knee. The sting in itself is not painful; it’s trying to move the area that causes some pain. The area has swollen as much as the skin will give and the usual redness and increase temperature in the area are present already.

Small Hive report: After a slow start this week, the trap is collecting it's usual number. I'll try and do a full count tomorrow. I say forty.

SHB Larva in Trap

2007-09-17T21:26:00.000-04:00

It has been almost two months since I brought home the hive, and from day one there has been no lack of adult Small Hive Beetles (SHB) in the trap. I inspect the oil in the hive drawer and re-bait about every four days. The usual number of drowned adult beetles is about thirty, give or take a hand full. The only lull came about a month ago when for a week there were only four beetles in the trap. I was just one day away from cleaning the oil out of the inspection tray for good when all of the sudden the body count spiked up; twenty the first week and then back to thirty or so the following week. The trap has done its job of controlling the beetle population. There are plenty in the trap but it is very rare when I photograph or see one in the hive.

This weekend was the first time I found two SHB larvae drowned in the oil. The wax moth and the SHB larva are very similar in appearance, but my online research confirmed the fact that it was a beetle larva. The UF dept of Entomology and Nematology website helped me identify the larva. “They can easily be distinguished by the presence of six prominent anterior legs. Wax moth larvae have a number of smaller less-developed, uniform prolegs.” What does a “have a number of ” legs mean anyway??? Has no one taken the time to count how many legs the wax moth larva has??? Does MORE mean 7? maybe 8?? Anyway, the macro lens pictures show the six prominent legs, therefore SHB larva. (Click on pictures for better views, Oh and the ruler shows about 12 mm in length, NOT over and inch)

I was somewhat alarmed, since I had added the medium supper the previous week. I had thoughts of the bees not being able to patrol the extra space, and the beetles and its larva running amok in the additional space. With that fear in my mind and curious to see if the bees had selected the plastic foundation frames, or the wooden starter strips on wooden frames, I decide to take a quick minimally invasive look.

Here is the side of my hive that had never been photographed before; it is sort of the dark side of the moon that hardly any one gets to see. The next picture is of the medium supper on the hive with the top off. The bees always seem to be building burr comb on the underside of the cover. I imagined with the additional space the top cover would have been free of bees. I was shocked to find that the top underside of the cover is as active, if not even more active, and cells are being drawn between the supper and the brood frames. There are plenty of bees hanging around the empty frames of the supper, but there seems to be no work being done on them. There should be plenty of laying space in the brood, but my goal was to be as non intrusive as possible. I’ll take a better look next Sunday. My fears were put at easy. Not a single SHB or its larva to be seen.

The goal for the next inspection is to take a look at a couple of frames with brood, honey and pollen stores. Speaking of which, this weekend I noticed dark red pollen been brought in. I found this entry on Wikipedia. I though pollen only came in yellow. I wish there was a simple way to tell where the pollen is coming from.

I'm Official

2007-09-11T22:54:00.000-04:00

The State of Florida says I'm beekeeper FL0050604R. If my state commissioner Charles H Bronson says so, then it must be true.

I can now "engage in the sale of distribution of honeybees", have the paper to prove that's what it says.

Putting together a spread sheet of my local pollen counts. ZIP 32934 (Click for larger view) The plan is to update it once a month for a couple of years. Monitoring the pollen count should help me make future predictions., and learn when my honey flows should occur.

Data provided by http://www.pollen.com/, well, is not really been provided by then, I'm just retrieving it daily from them.

Good Inspection Day

2007-09-10T23:40:00.001-04:00

I’m getting better and more confident at inspecting the hive. Armed with my new frame grippers, things went smoother than they ever have. Not perfect, but smoother. The picture shows my two tool boxes, one has my actual tools (frame gripper, hive tool, a couple of screw drivers, and beekeeper gloves just in case). The second tool box holds my smoker fuel (pine bark and pine needles). I collect those when the weather is good, with the afternoon showers; you just never can count on finding any dry needles or bark. I usually put a layer of pine needles, then pine bark, and finally another layer of needles. Not in the picture is my butane welding torch. I took the picture on my way back from having to go get it. The torch is probably a little of an overkill but one blast of the torch and the smoker is lit from top to bottom.

I’m still toying with the idea of making a new hive top cover or modifying the current one. It fits too snug, and the bees do such a good job gluing it down that it takes a lot of patience and wiggling to pry it off. I might cut the front and back telescoping sides to be able to insert my hive tool to pry it up. The worst of the summer is over, so I don’t think I’ll need to vent the hive, but making a top entrance, and venting by lifting the cover would be a lot easier if I modify or make a plain top cover.

I gave the hive its usual puffs of smoke under the screened bottom, the entrance, and once I had the cover loose in the top. I readied my frame puller, waited a minute, and WITH OUT my beekeeping gloves proceeded to open the hive. I had never pulled the frames on the east side. I pulled frame 9 , it is completely drawn out, but the outside of it is empty, opposite side of it is full with 80% uncapped honey (picture) . I placed that frame on top of the top cover, and leaned it on the body of the frame.

When I pulled frame 8 I was surprised at how heavy it felt. It was full of Pollen and honey (picture) , not a single cell open. I replaced it but moved it out, to get better access to Frame 7.

The outside of 7 was full of caped honey, but the inside was full of brood. Mostly workers but also a hand full of drones on the edges. I'm very surprise they are raising drones so late in the season !!!!!!

Frame 6 was nothing but brood from top to bottom (see picture), a little bit of capped honey on the upper outside corners. Frames 5 and 4 were the typical capped honey on top, a band of pollen below that, and then the capped brood. I’m no expert, but I think I have a very good laying queen. I was getting hot again, and a wasp stung me as I was putting my hat and veil on. Not sure where I picket it up, but it was in the veil's netting, I though it was dead so I pulled it off, it then flew right at my cheek and stung me. Two feet away from thirty thousand bees, and a wasp gets me ...... what are the odds???? Either way, my face hurt, and I was getting very hot again in 92 degrees. So I called it a day.

I’m very satisfied with the progress, but also slightly worried that they might decide to have a late swarm. The queen has a lack of laying space in the brood frames, there is just half of one frame empty for food stores, they are raising drones, and we are having very good Florida weather. My Hyacinth plant even had a second bloom. Notice in the picture the first batch of flowers going into seeds, as the bee works the second blooms from this week. I decided to place my medium supper on. I have no intention of harvesting any of this honey, if they even decide to move up, but it would be nice if they worked some of it to make sure there is enough food for the winder. You know that week or two that we might hit 30 Degrees Brrrrrrrrr. If they do move up, then next spring I can just put in my queen excluder, let what ever brood might be there hatch, and then it can be use for honey stores. I’m also very curious to find out if they prefer plastic or wood, foundation or foundationless.

My mistakes during this inspection:

Assume the wasp in my veil was not alive
I forgot to pull frame 10. I know is drawn out, but I have no clue if the bees are using it yet
Change the macro lens to the wide angle lens. I get some awesome detail with it, but I don't get the entire frame in one shot
Forgot to clean the old queen cells

Here is a candid shot of yours truly. I did wear my hat and veil, Jeans, thin long sleeve shirt, but no gloves. I'm just making sure the new super is lined up correctly on the body. My final thing for the day was to reload the bottom inspection drawer. Second picture shows it, the Prego jar is where I keep my bait, and the tall bottle is my vegetable oil. All the pictures in this post were taken on Saturday, except for the last picture that shows how good my bait and trap are working. I like to add that I saw no Small hive beetles in the hive, nor did any show up in the pictures. They are all in the trap. My attempt to bait and trap outside was a failure. Did nothing but attract ants into it (not a bad thing mind you), and the one away from the hive kept getting tipped over by some critter.

New Toys

2007-09-10T20:22:00.000-04:00

Beekeeping sure is a lot of fun when everything is going like it should. On Friday, a day before my inspection, the new toys arrived in the mail from Dandant.com.

The first toy is one Beemax medium Super ($11.80). I want to consider myself an organic beekeeper, but sometimes I feel like using Beemax hives and plastic frames is anything but organic. My thought on it is that I’m putting to good use some plastic/foam on its way to a landfill. The best way I can think of describing Beemax products is to imagine taking regular packing foam, dipping it in Fiberglass resin and then shaping it like a Hive. The material is harder than packing foam, lighter than wood, but it probably doesn’t have the flexibility that a plank of wood would have. Meaning that if I were to sit on a wooden plank the same size as one of the Beemax pieces, the wood would bow but still hold me. I don’t think the Beemax material will, but it seems to be design to take the weight of a hive. All my hives are from Beemax, two deep brood boxes and three medium supers. I can’t say they are the best things I have ever used, since they are the only things I have ever used. Lets say I am completely satisfy, and so far have no complains about it. I like how simple they are to put together, and I can’t imagine that the high Florida humidity and afternoon rain storms will make the material flake the paint off, warp, or rot away. Aside from the four hive panels, the only other thing to assemble on the beemax bodies are the two frame runners. These are simple "L" brackets who's short ends slide into the panel. The beauty of the Hive is how light it is, and how fast it can be assembled. The picture shows my new medium supper all lay out. Notice the bottom left is upside down - it is possible to assemble it upside down. The edges won’t be even with the adjacent sides, so confirm all sides are in the right orientation before you tap them together. Just in case you do what I did today and in the past, it is not impossible to slide them apart as long as the glue has not dried.

The assembly is fast and requires no tools, just glue and your hands. Apply some glue, line the edges up, and tap it in. Put the kids in some old clothes, get them some paint, and let them have some fun. While I was putting my new supper together, I let the kids decorate my deep box. This one is going to be my second hive early next spring.

My next toy is a Frame Griper; I simply don’t know how anyone does without one. It makes pulling that first frame out so much easier. The bees don’t seem to care about the cold metal intruding into their space. A few decided to investigate the metal, but I didn’t mind as long as it wasn’t my gloveless fingers they were investigating. It was well worth the $14.00; I felt like a veteran beekeeper pulling and replacing frames into the hive. I was displaying more confidence with my new frame griper or the bees were a lot calmer during my inspection. I hardly found a need to smoke them.

Last thing in my order were ten wooden frames, $8.60. I decided to assemble the frames, use a plain wood strip as the starter strip, and to alternate plastic and wood frames in one of my medium suppers that came with my starter kit. I wanted to have it ready depending on what I saw during the inspection.

Bee and Plant Garden

2007-09-03T21:02:00.008-04:00

Updated, March 15th, 2009

I always enjoy working in the garden. I like collecting unique plants, growing them from seeds, but never looked at them as bee friendly or unfriendly plants. To me a good plant is low maintenance, drought tolerant, and unique/rare. Now, it must also be friendly to bees, in other words, it should produce nectar and pollen.

This is my bee yard, it is not ideal but I have to make it work here. I think it will work, and I can imagine a total of 3 hives, hopefully one of them a Top Bar hive. The house is on the left, and my driveway is on the other side of the Palmetto's in the background. The shed I picked up from a friend at work. A casualty of her neighborhood by-laws makes it my honey house, bee equipment, and storage.

Cons –
-Too much shade. Shade is supposedly prefer by Small hive Beetles.
-Too much yard debris on the ground. Attracts ants
-Falling branches that may damage a hive.

I can control two of the three problems. My set up I believe has the Hive beetles, and the ants under control.
Pros –
-Lot of Pollen and Nectar Sources near by.
-My logic is that shade frees up bees from fanning duty. A hive under the full Florida sun probably must be fanned by bees to keep it from overheating.
-NO grass or weeds to mow, as the picture shows, very little grows under the canopy of the trees

As things flower and look their best, I'll update this section

Bee Friendly -
(October) Floss silk tree - someday it will be the showcase of my front. Unfortunately is going to have just one bloom this year. The tree is about 10 feet tall, and I put it in on X-mas 2006. The tree usually doesn't bloom for a couple of years, so it was a big surprise that it bloomed, and a big tease that it has just one bloom. Some day it will look like this.

(August to Early November) Hyacinth bean- . Climbing Vine, large clumps of small colorful flowers. Popular with all pollinating insects in October. No insect would look at it in August. Small wild green bees were all over it in November. Attempting to propagate by waiting for seeds to develop from blooms. Pods and seeds may be poisonous due to high concentrations of cyanogenic glucosides, and can only be eaten after prolonged boiling.
Firebush - A good source of nectar. The bees interest seems to be limited to just when is the only source of Polen and Nectar. Flowers all year around, but bees take interest only during the months of October and early November

Saw Palmetto - It is a small palm, normally reaching a height of around 2-4 m. Its trunk is sprawling, and it grows in clumps or dense thickets in sandy coastal lands or as undergrowth in pine woods or hardwood hammocks (Wikipidia) Begins to bloom in Late March till early May

Magnolia trees - Magnolia is a large genus of about 210[1] flowering plant species in the subfamily Magnolioideae of the family Magnoliaceae. (wikipedia) I have three large tress that bloom in the summer begining in April. Beauty Berry - Begins blooming in May. Literature says is a good nectar source, but it is not a good pollen source

Black Berry and Blue Berry- Begins blooming in Late February till ?

Herbs - Basil, Cilantro, chives, Lemon balm, and many more. I try to plant batches of everything months apart that way there is something blooming all the time.

Confederate Jazmin- This one is wrapped around a 75 foot pine tree. Blooms early May,and when it blooms you can smell it the minute you step outside the house.

Bromeliads - Very popular Tropical plant. These are those very expensive plants you see with beautiful blooms in the stores. I have several varieties, that may flower at any time from spring to fall. I can't give them away fast enough. For every one I pull, two fill in the empty space.

Bromeliad in bloom (Puya raimondii)

Another Plant I completely ignored till now. (Picture) Wisteria - Paying more attention to it now. I have two vines that climbed a couple of pine trees some 30' high. Great bee plant, blooms spring to summer, but I have never seen mine like the ones in the Wikipedia link. Fertilizing it and talking to it nice in the hope it will bloom better. Is classified semi invasive by the state of Florida. So far this year I have given away 5 new shoots (about 1 to 3 feet tall). I kept and transplanted 5 plants, all of which are doing great.

Fruit trees - Six citrus trees (March bloom), Two Mango's (March Bloom), two Florida Grape vines (Wine grapes - most bitter grapes you can ever try ), Pineapple plants, and my latest addition ..... a young Japanese plum tree.

Other trees: Oaks (March Bloom), pines , Weeping Willow (January and February bloom), Palms, Silver Dollar eucalyptus, and Brazilian Pepper (September November bloom)

Bushes: Azaleas, and Hibiscu

Azaleas - Blooms late January. Buble bees show interest in the Azaleas, Honey bees don't touch it. Blooms around2nd week of February, for 2 to 3 weeks afte initial bloom.

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Bee Unfriendly - White Ti ti (Cyrilla racemiflora L.), Seen pictures of this plant, but have never seen it in person. On the other hand, Yellow Jessamine (Gelsemium sempervirens. I had been training one of this plants (picture) up and over a trellis for 2 years now. Was never a big flowered, but the Florida Beekeepers forum guys suggested I should get rid of it. Very very poisonous. Three Wisteria plants are in its place now. (See picture above)

Around the yard - I like unique plants. Some I grown for their looks, others just to see if I can. Florida Soil is very sandy, so I prefer to grow or at least start out most of my plants in pots.

Tobacco (picture) - Smokers at work were complaining about how much the addiction was costing them. Made me wonder why smokers don't grow their own stuff. I did some online research, found an online seed supplier, and for $35 I got a book on how to process tobacco, and more seeds than I knew what to do. Is a beautiful plant, has nice blooms, and tons of seeds. I'm not a smoker, but it turns out tobacco makes a great natural bug insecticide. Also, a lot of the leaf eating bugs, prefer it over my tomatoes and herbs. Not sure if they get addicted or die from cancer, but as long as they stay off my stuff and on the Tobacco - I'll keep growing it. I been able to grow three harvests per year. I mostly use it to mulch, but some say is good to smoke the bees with it at least twice/year. Organic way to knock varroa mites off bees.

Sugar cane - Now how cool would it be if I could soak this in water, and make natural sugar water for the bees. I'm a long way from it. I got 1 stock from a friend, that technically I could had gotten five plants from, but only one of the stocks grew. Here it is, right next to my seedlings of Passion fruit plants for next year.

Frangipani Plant - The flowers from these plant are use to make Hawaiian Lais. Beautiful, very fragrant, but one of the most useless flowers when dealing with bees. Along with another one of my favorite plants., the Bouhgainvillea