It's Only Mid-June

And I haven't seen any signs that the ladies in Rose will slow down for much of a break!

When I started this season, in my storage room,  I had a total of four empty supers. I had one super that was between 25% and 50% drawn out, and the remaining supers were all empty foundation. In early April, before leaving town on a vacation, I put one super on (the one that was partially drawn) just in case some flowers opened while I was gone. And two weeks later, I wish I had put two on at the beginning. And so the season has gone.

Now I have learned a bit from those mistakes, because I'm checking more frequently, and making sure they aren't running out of space too fast. About 4 weeks ago, the first (partially drawn) super was full, and they were drawing out the second. So I put two more on.

The last couple of weekends when I've checked them, they've been a bit stagnant, but I wasn't worried, I'd take 2 full supers for the season and be ecstatic with those results.

I checked again yesterday, expecting to see more of the same. They have capped the first and are in the process of capping the second, and the third and fourth are more than 50% drawn. Below are a couple pictures of some of the capped frames:

Look at this beautiful honey:

This frame is almost completely capped:

This side of the frame is only partially capped:

My Dad sent me a package last week with 3 more supers worth of frames, hoping to buy me some more time before I'd need an extractor. Well am I glad he did, and yet, if the intermittent rain and sun keep up, I'll need one in 4 to 6 weeks anyway.

When I saw how much progress had been made in just one week, I sort of freaked out just a bit, and ran into the house to pull out 2 more supers of empty foundation that my Dad sent. We've officially moved into step ladder territory. I think I may need to start lifting weights, too :)

Below are some more pictures, just for those who like looking through the pictures, and since I haven't been posting much lately:

I guess I Was Wrong

About a month ago, I introduced my daughter to our new queen.

Then I hung the cage containing the new queen inside Lavender. I checked after two days, and she was still in the cage. A very good friend of mine put on my extra hat and veil to take some pictures and catch a peek inside.

A couple days later, I checked again, and the queen and all her attendants were dead inside the cage. That night, I called my Dad, and he looked back through my pics on the blog. He explained that the laying pattern I was seeing was just spotty because queens in the spring don't always lay consistently, and the pattern when they start out in the spring can sometimes just be off.

So I was apparently wrong, there had been a queen in the hive all along, and it just wasn't laying in a nice even pattern like I'd anticipated. 

Over the past four weeks, during weekly inspections, I've verified this by finding new brood throughout a couple frames. Finally, the laying pattern is what it should be, and is finally looking better. Now, with time, I expect the numbers in the hive will start to increase.

On a better note, Rose is excelling (may have excelled even more if it hadn't swarmed at least once, maybe more) and already has a lot of honey. I'll go into more detail about this in my next blog post.

But yes, you did read correctly, I'm fairly certain that Rose has spawned at least 1 or 2 swarms, because I didn't give them enough space fast enough. Upon inspection four weeks ago, I spotted empty queen cells hanging off the bottom of the frames in the top hive body, which is a tell tale sign of swarming. I'm definitely learning something new every day, and I'll apply what I've learned to next year.

For other beekeepers out there, I'd say the one thing to take away from this post is patience. If I had taken more of a wait and see philosophy with Lavender, and just been patient, I wouldn't have lost a perfectly good queen. I learn something new every week when I check on these beautiful ladies! 

The Little Hive That Could(n't)

Poor Lavender just hasn't gotten over this string of bad luck, at least not yet anyway. I've just placed an order for a new Italian queen for the smaller, weaker hive.

I wasn't 100% sure last week, when I thought they were too buzzy to be "normal", but I confirmed this evening, upon inspection, that Lavender is (again) queenless. If you're one of my 2 or 3 regular readers, you may remember that I purchased a queen for Lavender last August after trying, unsuccessfully to help them raise a queen by giving them a frame of fresh eggs.

At that time, giving them some eggs at least helped their population and straightened out a laying worker problem. So far, this time around, I don't believe I have a laying worker, at least not a very active one, because there isn't a lot of drone comb.

Tonight, it was too late in the day, and I was in a hurry, so I didn't take any pics, but there wasn't anything to photograph anyway. In fact, that is the problem, other than pollen and honey stores, there is nothing in the comb. At this point in the season, it is very, very bad to not have any new brood, and if I don't turn things around fast, it could mean the end of the colony. They're working so hard to collect nectar and store honey, and the lifespan of the honeybee is way too short this time of year.

Tonight, if I had more smoker fuel, I would have preferred to move a frame or two from Rose to Lavender, but luck was against me. In addition to ordering a queen, I also ordered some smoker fuel, because I am completely out.

I should receive the new queen on Tuesday, but won't have smoker fuel to install the new queen for a couple more days. Since I don't want to wait that long to install her, I guess I'm going to have to get creative about what to burn, that creates a smoke that's as cool and white as possible, and that I already have around the house. Any suggestions?

The Start of Year 2

Spring is definitely in full swing. Both  Rose and Lavender are active and doing all they're supposed to do. Dandelions are open, as well as a lot of other spring flowers, and everything is green and growing.  So far we have gotten a good mix of rain and sunshine to make conditions perfect for an early nectar flow.

I inspected both hives, and I'm very pleased with the laying pattern I found while inspecting Rose.

I'm not entirely sure what's wrong with Lavender, but I'm not happy with what I saw. The laying pattern isn't consistent, and there are occasional extremely large cells (seem too long to be drones, but do not hang vertically like a queen cell).

Any thoughts?

Flowering Trees

While observing the hives yesterday, I noticed a bee or two with pollen as they re-entered the hive. Here in southern/central Indiana, we must have some trees flowering.

Rose seems very strong, and has cleaned out a lot of dead bees since last week. Cleaning house is a good sign.

Rose is also taking a lot of syrup, because both pint jars were empty when I checked the feeder.

Lavender has only consumed about 1pint of syrup, but they were still moving pollen in, and while they don't seem to be as strong as Rose, they're still holding on.

Neither hive seems to be eating much of the pollen substitute I gave them last week, but I'm guessing that's because they have natural pollen to use for raising brood.

Hopefully either today or next weekend, I'll be doing some work on Lavender to get the colony moved out of the super. I'll try to get some pictures of that process when I do.

Spring?

We are so thrilled, and so very lucky, to announce that we seem to have a 100% survival rate! If they don't make it now, it will most likely be due to starvation. So today I fed each hive. In each feeder box, there is quart of one-to-one syrup and a large, homemade pollen patty, made from Bee Pro pollen substitute mixed with some extra one-to-one syrup.

Long Over Due Update

August 2, 2014
Approximately two weeks after moving the frames of brood and eggs from Rose to Lavender, I opened up the hive to check on Lavender's queen raising progress. I found several queen cells, one of which was open on the end (essentially uncapped). All the others I found had been broken through the side, and some still had dead larvae inside the broken cells. After some discussion with my Dad, I learned that these were all good signs, but I hadn't found fresh eggs, which is the only guaranteed way of knowing you have a new queen. The following week, my parents happened to be coming for a visit anyway, so my Dad just said to wait another week to check them again when he was here.

August 9, 2014
We smoked Lavender, and opened it up, and my Dad immediately stated that they still didn't have a queen. He could tell by the loud buzzing sound coming from the hive. Most likely, the eggs I gave them were too old, and they couldn't raise a viable queen from any of them. While inspecting, we determined the colony wasn't using the original super that I started them in when I caught the swarm, so we removed that.

Then we smoked Rose to search for some new eggs to put another frame into Lavender and repeat the process again. However, without us realizing it, the weather began to turn cloudy and overcast. We took off the supers (the lowest super is full of honey BTW, my Dad predicted around 25 lbs!) and inspected just about every frame in the top hive body. None of the frames had anything but capped brood and honey. Before we had time to inspect the lower hive body, my Dad was stung 4 or 5 times, and we decided to close it up and come back again another day. As we closed up both hives, we moved the empty super that was on the bottom of Lavender, and put it on top of Rose, so Rose is up to 3 supers.

Within the next 2 days, we decided to order a new queen from Walter T. Kelley. We drove down to Clarkson, Kentucky on Monday, August 11, 2014 to pick it up and put the queen's cage into the hive that evening when we got back.

August 14, 2014
We inspected Lavender again to check on the queen's cage, and as soon as we opened it, the bees were much more settled than the last inspection. My Dad could tell instantly by the sound they made that they were more comfortable because they had a queen. It was a subtle change, and I wouldn't have noticed the change in their sound if he hadn't pointed it out. The workers in the hive had eaten far enough through the candy so they would have had her out by the end of that day. But we didn't want to have to go back in to remove the empty queen's cage later, because the weather was getting unpredictable. And we wanted to remove the cage as soon as possible to prevent them from building burr comb. So my Dad removed the screen from the queen's cage and released her and the attendants into the hive. I am kicking myself as I write this, because I should have taken some pictures during the last few days, especially of this task. The queen left her cage, and first climbed around on my Dad's hand before climbing down onto a frame.

At the same time, since we had the smoker burning, we checked Rose again, and the bees are actively working on the third super that we put on just 3 days before.

August 15, 2014
The bees in Rose were soooo active, I was amazed how many bees were foraging (coming in and out). My Dad predicted that the hive probably brought in at least 2 pounds of honey, just that day! Good thing we put the 3rd super on. I also was happy that we have enough fence around the hives to force the bees to fly up before flying to the flowers where they're collecting nectar, because that many bees flying in and out with a low flight pattern would make it hard for us to even be in our yard on that busy of a day.

August 16, 2014
Lavender was long over due for a refill of syrup in the feeder, and I added a 4th super to Rose. Exciting times in our backyard lately.

Still to come in the next few weeks and months:
~ Confirmation of eggs from the new queen in Lavender - it's getting late in the season, so they really need to take off fast and get to increasing their worker numbers to fill 2 hive bodies for the winter.
~ Taking supers off Rose to extract honey. I never thought this would happen the first season, but it's a whole new step for me, since I never learned this part from my Dad in person. He's coming for another short visit though, for a wedding that's a few hours away, so I am going to try to get what I can done before he gets here.
~ Winterizing - getting the hives ready for winter is important, and every beekeeper has different ideas for how to do it.
~ Assisting and mentoring a first time beekeeper