Hive Check: Week 7

After my weekly public hive inspection at the Added Value Community Farm in Red Hook, I headed up to my rooftop apiary in Fort Greene carrying a pair of extra hive bodies, plenty of frames and a bunch of foundation.

Herro.

As I hypothesized last week, the influx of queen and brood pheromones from the activity of the new queen (Esmeralda) in Hive #1 resulted in some gangbuster comb building. Unfortunately, a lot of it is in the space under the feeder.

Brace comb all up in my business.

After removing all the brace comb (and feeding it to a photographer that tagged along for the day), I started flipping through the frames. They're up to working 8 of the 10 frames in the original deep hive body I installed them in, which is excellent. According to the '7/10ths rule', which suggests giving bees a new hive body/frames when they have drawn out 7 of the 10 frames in the newest box, they are more than ready for a little extra room. The large amount of brace comb built under the suggests the same thing. Bees want to build vertically rather than out to the side, so you will often see them build up wherever they can (usually in an inconvenient manner) and neglect the outer frames.

Not low on stores, no sir.

After you give them a new hive body and they start drawing out comb, you can start shuffling the frames in the original box and move the undrawn outer frames a few spaces closer to the center. This will encourage the bees to draw them out, but be sure not to put frames of undrawn foundation between ones that contain brood of any age (eggs/larvae/pupae). You don't want to break up the brood nest in a young colony! Ideally, you should move the unworked foundation between two combs that are fully drawn out and which contain stores of (un)capped honey and/or pollen.

A frame of newly capped brood.  I seem to make this pose a lot.

Esmeralda, the new queen of Hive #1, is absolutely fantastic. That frame and a half of eggs/larvae I saw last week are now a frame and a half of capped brood, surrounded by several frames of eggs and larvae of all ages. Her laying pattern is perfect; solid, circular, and prolific. I sure do hope that this hive doesn't decide to supersede her as well. That would be lame.

Eggies, so fresh!

As this new queen was freely mated in Brooklyn, I have no idea what the genetic makeup of her offspring will be. Unlike queens from commercial producers, who flood their breeding yards with drones of known/specific/desired genetics, Esmeralda mated in the jungle that is Brooklyn with "wild" drones. The drones she mated with may have come from feral colonies living in hollow trees or the walls and attics of homes in the surrounding area. They might have come from the hive of a neighboring beekeeper. They could have any sort of genetics; Italian, Carniolan, Russian, or hybrid!

While the queen herself is Italian in terms of her genotype/phenotype (her genetic makeup/her physical characteristics), I won't have any idea about who she has mated with until the new bees start to emerge.

HUGE.

It's risky; I have no idea what the temperament or behavior of the new bees will be. They could be docile and productive, they could be cranky and lazy, or they could be anywhere in between. Many people prefer not to risk the unknown and immediately replace any supersedure queens with commercial ones, but I've decided to let them do their thing and see how it goes. If the next couple of brood cycles come out terrible I WILL requeen, but only as a last resort. I like the concept of using (and sharing) locally bred and adapted bees, so I have an interest in seeing if such bees are a practical option, especially considering the shortage of quality bees and queens this year due to the terrible weather in the American South.

We'll see.

Tasty new foundation.

Hive #2 is still doing it's (somewhat slow) thing. Brood is still spotty and they're slower about building comb, but it does seem to be ramping up. They finally started work on their 7th frame, so they aren't quite ready for a second hive body, but they might be next week. I've been wondering if it is possible that their poor brood pattern may be the result of a dearth of high quality protein, so I think that I am going to start feeding the colony fresh pollen and see if the situation improves. The hives were started out with pollen patties and the brood pattern in Hive #2 was originally pretty tight. While Hive #1 doesn't seem to have the problems that this one does, I haven't seen much stored pollen in either of the hives.

Prettybees.

It certainly can't hurt!

I brought a deep/frames/foundation for Hive #2 as well, but they didn't need it so I stored it on top of the feeder rather than carrying it back down the ladder.

Hive Check: Week 6

When bricklaying proved to be hard on his back later in life, Mr. Churchill took up beekeeping.

V for Victory!

I am pleased to report that the supersedure in Hive #1 was a success. The new queen is mated and laying down a solid brood pattern. Her name is Esmeralda, at least for now. She’s only been laying for a couple of days, but there was a frame and a half of new eggs and young larvae. Beautiful!

In the popular vernacular: "Dat ass!"

Hopefully, the influx of queen and brood pheromones will kickstart the hive back into productivity. As I mentioned in a previous inspection report, the bees have been stalled in terms of comb drawing activity. Flipping through the hive I saw that they were beginning to draw out the outer frames. They’re up to working 7 frames, and if they continue to draw out comb they’ll be ready for a second hive body by Week 7.

Hive #2 is also starting to build comb again, but not very nicely. While they are (slowly) working the outer frames, they remain behind Hive #1 and have only drawn 6 frames so far. They have, however, continued to use the extra space in the bottom of the feeder to build their own unguided comb. It’s annoying, but there isn’t much to be done about it. It’s a flaw in the design of the feeder itself; rather than a small channel allowing access to the feed, it has a wide groove that is more than large enough to contain a large amount of brace comb.

Annoying.

Every time I remove this comb, the bees just rebuild it rather than working the frames I want them to. In the future, I’ll be removing any comb connected to the frames below the feeder, but leaving the comb inside the feeder itself. Hopefully, once they fill that null space, they will get on to more constructive work.

Hive Check: Week 5

A short update as I get the blog caught up to the present day.

Opening up Hive #1, I kept my fingers crossed. As I shared in my week 4 inspection, the bees had decided to supersede their perfectly good package queen. I had found a number of fully capped queen cells, so knowing that queens spend approximately 7 and a half to 9 days developing as pupae in capped cells, I figured that the virgin queens would likely emerge in less than a week:

Metamorphosis of the Queen Bee
Egg: hatches on Day 3
Larva (several moltings): Day 3 to Day 8½
Queen cell capped: ~Day 7½
Pupa: ~Day 8 until emergence
Emergence: ~Day 15½ - Day 17
Nuptial Flight(s): ~Day 20 - 24
Egg Laying: ~Day 23 and up

As it turns out, I was right. All of the queen cells I found during my last inspection were both hatched and in the process of being torn down. It's remarkable how quickly the bees eliminated them considering the queens must have only hatched a day or two ( at most) prior to my inspection. I didn't see the virgin queen(s), but to be fair I wasn't looking too hard. Knowing that the hive was in the middle of a transition, I kept my inspection quick to minimize any disruption.

René Magritte was famously inspired by a beekeeper.

The remains of three queen cells.  I wonder which of these queens survived to mate.

Hive #2 was still plugging along; they're not great, just average. They've started drawing comb again (slowly), now that they have had time to hatch some new bees, so hopefully things will pick up soon. Their population isn't huge; only covering 5 or so frames, so they don't need a new hive body to expand in to yet.

The hive top feeders we have are flawed in that they have a large amount of space underneath them.  The bees have been taking advantage of this by building comb in the feeder instead of using the frames.

Jerks.

Emily inspecting a newly drawn frame.

One of the center frames.

Cleaning up after I removed the spur of comb extending into the feeder.

Hive Check: Week 4

Gary, Indiana.  Bees ERRYWHERE.

Trouble, oh we got trouble,
Right here in Fort Greene!
With a capital "T"
That rhymes with "B"
And that stands for Bees,
That stands for Bees!
We've surely got trouble!
Right here in Fort Greene,
Right here!
Gotta figger out a way,
To keep the young ones from killin' their queen!
Trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble...

Time to play catch up! I'm gonna try to bust out the last couple of weeks worth of hive inspections over the next couple of days, so bear with me.

During my weekly inspection, I noticed that Hive #2 was doing well, albeit still a bit spotty. The queen looks healthy, and was producing a decent amount of brood, but the hive seemed to be stalled building comb.

This lack of comb building behavior can have a variety of root causes. It may be that due to the (still) chilly nights, the bees would rather build vertically than out to the sides. Building vertically allows them to maintain the temperature within the broodnest with less effort and with fewer bees. Remember that heat rises, so the warmth from the bottom of the hive will rise up between the frames and directly between the frames above them.

Difficult children.

The behavior is called 'chimneying' and can be most often seen in young, small, or overwintered colonies trying to conserve heat. If temperature regulation to the sides is the problem, then it can be remedied it by giving the bees more vertical space (another hive body.) The bees should take to it quickly and build up and onwards. Once the temperature becomes more consistent, and their population larger, you can start rotating the outer frames closer to the middle, encouraging the bees to draw them out. Try to avoid breaking up the brood nest.

I need to get this queen jazzercising or something.  Wheres Joan of Arc when you need her?  Hanging at the Circle K?

Alternately, the lack of comb drawing may be caused by a poor queen. This is harder to prove, and is a judgment call. As I've mentioned previously, the queen in hive #2 is weaker than I would like and a bit spotty, but not terrible. This has been a bad year for bee production and with the extreme weather in the South (which also resulted in our packages being delayed for over a month), it is likely that many of the queens provided in our packages are poorly or inadequately mated. I have heard from other beekeepers who started packages at the same time as me that they have been having similar issues.

Never let me go!

Ishiguro: Secret Beekeeper?

Unfortunately, the abundance of weak queens means that the supply of quality replacement queens is tight. Even if you know you need to requeen, getting a replacement that is robust, healthy, and well mated can be a problem. Under ideal circumstances, a new queen will supercharge a stalled colony, laying ridiculous amounts of brood, resulting in a population explosion of young bees that are just rip-roaring to build up comb and fill it with delicious nectar.

Hive #1 drawing out new comb.
Those really are the whitest cappings EVER.

Continuing the trend, Hive #1 decided that it wanted to be a trouble maker as well. While it is being better about drawing comb than Hive #2, the bees seem to have determined that they want a new queen, despite the old one being a wonderfully prolific and solid layer.

I wanna see!  I wanna see!

Opening up the hive, I was met with several frames of lovely capped brood, and some more beautifully made queen cups. Opening one up, it was clear that they were more than ornamental.

Baby queen.  Sorry girl.

Why, bees, why? Your old queen was so good!

Flipping through the other frames, I was greeted with no less than 6 capped and developing supersedure cells. I didn't see the old queen, so it is possible that she was damaged or that I 'rolled' (accidentally squished) her during a previous inspection. Seeing as I saw her last time and she was doing fine, I'm really not sure what happened to her, but being the adventurous type, I decided to let the bees do their thing and make their own queen.

See the cat? See the cradle?

Risky Business.

During my next inspection, I should see a bunch of empty queen cells. With any luck, over the next week or two the surviving virgin queen will take several mating flights, mate with a variety of local drones, not get eaten by pigeons, make it back to the hive and start laying.

Keep your fingers crossed!

Hive Check: Week 3

Don't panic, boys and girls.

We've entered the package slump. The oldest of the package bees are starting to die as they wear out their bodies foraging for nectar and pollen, and the oldest of the brood has yet to emerge. The drop in population can be precipitous and dangerous. If the temperature is still dropping into the low 50s at night when the population drops, it can result in chilled (and killed) brood as the reduced population of adult bees struggle to keep them warm.

With an ageing population you should also expect to see a drop off in the amount of comb being drawn. As the house bees get older, their bodies become less efficient at producing wax and they start to move to other duties. As the first generation of young workers emerge, they will rush to take over house bee duties; raising their sisters, maintaining the environment within the hive, building comb, and storing food.

Lookit them pokin' their little noggins out!  So curious!

We started our inspection with Hive 2 this time. As you can see, there are hardly any bees working the outer comb, but you can see the majority peeking up from the center. The brood pattern is still a little bit spotty, and it's hard to say why. It may be that the queen is very young and inexperienced, which will clear up as she hits her stride. It could be that some of the earliest brood got chilled and the bees removed them to make spaces for "heater bees" to help keep the surviving young alive. Jim Fischer at the NYC Beekeeping Group suggested that theory.

I had a similar brainwave, and it makes sense- the temperatures dropped down into the low 50's those first couple of nights and this hive had brood a few days earlier than the other one, which has a solid pattern. If it was only a loss due to the chill, the bees should clear it up and the next brood cycle or two should be nice and solid, especially once the population starts growing. In either of these cases, the queen should have gone back and re-laid in the empty cells.

Side 1:  Spotty brood pattern.

Alternately, the queen may just be kind of cruddy. She's not a complete failure, though. The hive isn't in danger of just dying out- she IS laying quite a bit of brood, it just happens to be spotty. If it's a problem with the queen, we'll be able to tell because it won't clear up over the next couple of inspections.

Side 2: More spotty brood.

Hive 1 continues to be spectacular. As with its sister, not much more comb has been drawn compared to Week 2, but the brood nest is phenomenal. These guys are going to POP over the next couple of weeks.

Big fan of Magritte.

"Busy, busy, busy."

Remarkably white cappings.  If they keep it up, I'm going to make cut comb honey next year.

The frame perch you can see hanging on the left of my hive is probably one of the most useful beekeeping gadgets I own.

We spotted the queen and something curious...

First look at the queen of Hive 1.  Respect.

Queen of Cups.  Getting all mystical.

A queen cup! I spotted this in the fold of comb where I removed that bit of burr comb last week. Rather than just drawing out the comb further and evening out the frame, the bees used the space to build a lovely white queen cup.

Hive 1 is capping plenty of stores.

And they also have quite a bit of capped brood.  These ladies will be emerging this week.

You shouldn't panic when you see one (or many) of these. I know you're going to anyways, but queen cups aren't something to worry about. Some hives are just genetically predisposed towards building them, but just having them doesn't mean that they're going to USE them. Sometimes they just like having them handy. Russian bees in particular are famous for building full blown queen cells and tearing them down days before they emerge as new queens. *Insert Russians <3 Revolutions joke of your choosing here.*

Larvae!  Tasty grubs!

I just can't get over how white these cappings are.

When you DO see one, take a look inside. Most of the time it'll be empty and you can safely ignore it. If you see a larvae swimming in royal jelly, then you have something to be concerned about and a potential problem to solve, but that's a talk for another time.

Tim + Bees = <3

Birds and the Bees.  Distinct lack of ray guns.