Keown orchards and honeybees!

Honeybees and more honeybees! Oh my!! Keown's orchard has 12 hives. Very strong and active. Maybe next year ours will do better. But after listening to the head bee man Ken (ma inspector) we realize that our brood box is honey bound (sugar syrup in our case). What does that mean, the bees have started to store all the sugar syrup we have been feeding them and now there is no place for the queen to lay more eggs. Our numbers are very low. I worry that the cluster will be too small to survive the winter. Ken is managing these hives and he is going to spin out some of the honey in some of these hives to give the queens more empty frames to lay in. Well what should we do? Because our frames don't have honey but sugar syrup we need to just replace some of the frames with empty drawn out frames. We know just who to call, George.

There is a lot of robbing going on. The goldenrod came early and is just about done. There is little to no pollen or nectar left anywhere for the bees to gather so they begin robbing other hives. Stealing honey from other hives. That's also why you'll notice many of us aren't wearing any protective clothing today. The day turn out beautiful. This was the last outdoor meeting for the season. Glad we were able to make it.

Look what is living next door...

New home

When we arrived, the girls were flying. Seems the move hasn't bothered them too much. It's been awhile since we looked inside. I wanted to check to see how the girls were doing with the last of the empty frames. Still 3 empty frames. But they seem to be doing fine.

Moving day?....Night

It's been awhile since I posted...that's because we've been very busy moving. Moving is a big event to begin with BUT now we have a bee hive to move! How hard can it be. Wait till its dark and everyone is in and go. Well the morning of the move I use a large piece of screen between the inner cover and the outer cover. It tucked it all under the inner cover, blocking the hole on the top and in the edge of the cover. I then duct taped the inner cover to the hive and replaced the outer cover. After work of course now we have to wait for it to get dark. I kept going out to check what the girls were doing. Slowly the girls made their way into the hive. Finally around 8:30 I checked again. Still a few guards at the door. So I gently blew on them and....they moved in! I did it again and they move further in. Well, I kept doing it, they stay inside the opening and I put a piece of screen over the opening and taped it in place. I taped the sides of the hive to hold everything together. Ok... time to load the hive onto the truck. Thank goodness the hive is only 1 brood box. And were off. We arrived without incident. Unload the hive onto the new stand. At the new location we put the hive up on blocks, there tends to be more wildlife here.

a quick check

The frame here on the left is #2 from the left of the hive...what little they drew out, they decided to fill with sugar syrup, maybe some nectar too. The frame on the right is from the same position on the right side of the hive. This frame is more drawn out. Alot of syrup, some of it capped. And the queen has been here. There is some capped brood. A few cells with pollen. Everyone is VERY busy. Trusty assistant Jim went out to the hive late morning and just stood at a distance watching the entrance. Workers coming and going and what looked like another flying lesson. But, he said you could hear the buzzing. So for today we just checked these 4 outer frames. If these 2 had been full of syrup and brood we would have put on the second brood box. But they weren't and we didn't. The weather has finally been like summer. I'm still feeding them so hopefully they will continue building. Till next time....

flying lesson

When we got home sunday afternoon, the sun was shining on the hive and there were many girls flying. We could see them from our driveway. When I got closer to watch what was going on, I could see that many of them weren't flying away but hoovering then landing on the hive and that these test flyers were young bees. There were even a couple young ones practicing guard duty!

looking good....

Everything is looking good. They are storing syrup and pollen. We have many more bees. Plenty of larvae and capped brood. And a lot more eggs. We've had two bee-u-ti-ful sunny days. Saturday on my morning walk I came across a patch of milkweed teeming with honeybees! Finally! Honeybees somewhere besides the hive in my backyard. Now...are they my girls? Or do they belong down the street in the other direction? I believe both. As I watch them so leave heading towards home and some are heading in the opposite direction. So we got the smoker going and checked on the girls back at the hive. Everything is looking good. They are storing syrup and pollen. We have many more bees. Plenty of larvae and capped brood. And a lot more eggs. They are starting to build out the other frames and we saw our queen which always makes us very happy. But we still need to keep feeding sugar syrup. So we filled both jars and put the cover back on. I'll check the jars Monday night. Hopefully the weather will turn for the better and start staying warm and sunny.

assistant in training

larvae, oh yay!

Finally! We have larvae and more eggs! It looks like all different stages of larvae. The hive is weak. As I was trying to get the photo of the dark orange pollen on an incoming worker we saw two bees come out of the hive and die.
The bee inspector said we had some tracheal mites....
BUT we have had these bees with no replacements
since 4/26, 36 days. Now we have no idea how old they actually are. During honey flow they live 6 weeks.

Where's the Queen

We let the queen out of her cage on the 30th. Today, Sat 5/2 there is a the first outdoor meeting of the season. WCBA , Worcester County Bee Association. But first we need to check on our girls and see how they are doing. We decide we needed to use the smoker....must be a trick...can't keep it going... We locate the queen quickly, remember she has a green spot on her head. Wanted to take more photos....but trusty assistant had an accident. He dropped one of the frames covered in bees! " DON'T PANIC" I said! We put the frame back in the brood box and close up the hive. See them on the ground. Believe it or not, none of them take flight. They all begin marching toward the front of the hive! Amazing! Off we go to the WCBA meeting. Exciting! Six hives were opened. The day warmed up. The sun was shining and the bees were flying! We got to see close up drone cells and queen cells and what to do to help keep the hive from swarming. Of course still not knowing alot about this camera... two pictures and the battery dies!