August 25, 2009 – The Queen Bee is Layin’ and the Flow Will Be Good

New queen is out and laying nicely!!! I added the second super as well. Goldenrod is out, and this will be a big honey flow for the bees! I plan on adding another super next week!! So far so good!!

July 10, 2009 – The Queen is Back in the Box

Queen is nestled in the hive safe and sound in her own little box, for now. As soon as the bee’s eat thru the candy plug keeping her inside then we will see how they respond to her. Im really hoping the except her and she mates asap. Cross your fingers!!! In a few days I will check and see if she is out yet and if theres any signs of her laying yet.

July 7, 2009 – The QUEEN BEE IS GONE!

The queen is gone I havent checked the hive since my last post untill last night. Its been so rainy I havent been able to open up the hive. Well when I did I could tell something was up instantly, the bee’s where so loud the buzzing was different too. Normally they go about there business when I inspect, but last night they swarmed all around me, very frantic. Im thinking they are acting this way cause there is no queen and they are freaking out!!! I couldnt find the queen plus there was no signs of her, no eggs, no brood. Just lots of pollen and honey.

So I am picking up a new queen tonight. Lets hope she makes it. If not I dont think the colony will be strong enough to last the winter. They need to move fast. I def wont have any honey to harvest this year. I thought they would make a new queen, and I did spot a queen cell but it was empty, and no one was working on it. So either a new queen hatched and she is still a virgin or its just an empty queen cell. Its hard to tell. I wish one could talk and tell me whats goin on lol!

Once I get the new queen she will be in a small box that I will wedge between the middle frames, theres a candy plug that the bee’s will eat out to release her in a few days after they get aquainted. If a new queen is already hatched, they will kill the queen I placed in there. Lets hope not she was $30!! I really hope this works, I should have 2 full supers by now and I dont even have one full yet
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June 16, 2009

Sunday a fellow female beekeeper came over and examined the hive.
Anyways she came over all geared up and ready to go, I was so excited!! She has so many cool gadgets that I just gotta get!! A frame holder that hangs from the side of the hive so when your done looking at each frame you can hang it instead of putting it on the ground and move to the nxt frame, great idea!! A homemade queen catcher, a really cool thing to pull the frames apart with, cant remember the name? So many other cool ideas, a solar wax melter..she makes this all herself too! Ya I was totally in awe.

So as soon as she opened the hive she was spewing out information, my brain went into over load! The bees are making burr comb, thats what I thought was a queen cell, she recommened I get a wax coated plastic style frame that wont bow and make the bee’s burr the comb like that. Otherwise every time I move the frames I am ripping apart the comb, which will kill larva or make a mess come harvest time. She inspected each frame and came to the conqlusion that the queen is present and laying just not very well. Either because she is new or wasnt mated properly, because she is laying way to many drones and mixing them in the middle of the frames with the brood. Remember the brood (female)should be in the middle of the frame and drone(male) should be on the outsides only.
So next we looked for eggs which I hadnt done before, I just looked for larva. The eggs are so tiny like little white hairs almost in the bottoms of empty cells, and she wanted to make sure there was just one egg per cell which there was and every vacant cell had an egg, all good signs. Now we have to find the queen which took forever, I havent spotted her since I started this, it was hard. But I finally found her, she was surrounded by worker bee’s they almost looked like a flower shape around her fanning her like a queen!! She is a small queen, very small thats whay it was so hard to spot her, we caught her and placed a white dot on her back. We should have marked her green I guess there is some color cycle all bee keepers mark there queens the same colors and it changes yearly. Anyways we marked her, catching her was hard she didnt like it, kept covered up by the other bee’s, I blew gently and they moved a way.
The hive does have a few “emergency” queen cells ready to go in case this queen isnt cutting it. An emergency cell is just a large cell made from wax and if they need to they will lay and egg and start feeding it only royal jelly to make a queen. There prepared lil things!!

We sat and talked for 3 hours it was so helpful and I am so grateful to her for taking the time out to share her knowledge with me. She is amazing, I cant wait to be at that level! I asked so many questions and she had answers! I also have some great bee keeping supply books and alot more know-how on what my next steps should be. So thanks a bunch Dee’s Bee’s!!!!!! Cool name huh! Her bee suit was embroidered with that, im totally embroidering mine too! loved it!

June 8, 2009 – The Battle of the Queens

The queens is laying for sure, but I don’t think she is laying fast enough for the hive, asthey are making a new queen! There’s a peanut shape on the bottom of a frame and I am pretty sure its a queen cell. If they are phasing her out then I am going to let them handle it.

The new queen will hatch and either kill the current queen or the current queen will be killed by the rest of the hive. Crazy huh… who knew bee hives could be so gruesome. I found one whole frame full of larvae and one frame looked to be ‘drone brood’ which I guess isn’t good. There was also a lot of honey-drawn combs. More then there should be, it should mostly be all frames of brood with the outer edges of the frames filled with honey. However, I’m going to let this play out, see if a new queen hatches and go from there. If not, I may have to buy a new queen if the current queen is doing her job. Sad though.

Here are some pictures:

^ close up of some larvae…cool !

^ possible new queen cells sticking out below

^ see how the caps on these are raised and octogan shaped – that means they are drone cells, or male bees.

^ These are flatter and darker, larvae (or brood). All the cells SHOULD be capped. A spotty pattern could mean a laying worker bee OR the queen isn’t doing a good job… and thats why the hive is replacing her. Not entirely sure yet. But look in the open cells you can see the larvae in there.

^ See the white caps on the top? That’s honey!!! The frames should have brood all nice and even in the middle and the top. The sides should be all honey.

May 19th

Around 7:30pm, I geared up and headed out to fill up the sugar syrup feeder. There were no bees flying around, but I could hear them loud and clear. The tone of the buzz seemed to change from time to time; I think they were talking to eachother, “Guys there’s a giant white bear out there!”

As I was filling the feeder one by one drones came out to greet and inspect me. They weren’t aggresive though; still no stings, just buzzed around my head. As I was still a little nervous, I puffed some smoke all around me. I’m not sure if that helped, but it surely made me feel better!

I pulled the lid off to see whats happening inside and there they all were, I was way more aprehensive then the first time. Now there all settled in and cozy, it must be so bright when the lid comes off a real shocker!

I pulled the last two frames out and slid the rest to the left untill I reached the middle frames which is where all the action was. I didn’t spot the queen, and checking everything out is harder then I thought.

I did see lots of comb being built, and no brood that I could tell of, but the frames were so covered with bees, it was hard to tell what was what. However, the formation of the combs seemed to be just like I read about. The bees were all stuck together as I moved the frames apart, and it was like their legs where attatched. I felt so bad pulling them apart, as I dont want to hurt them, soI was as gentle as I could be. I can’t wait untill I am comfortable enough to not wear gloves, as they are the hardest part of the whole suit

I also had to remove the queens cage she came in. She was no longer in there, but the bees started to make a hive around it and the cage was stuck in there pretty good.I got it out safely with out crushing anyone. Pushed all the frames back to center and placed the last two back in the hive, closed it all up and went home.

May 16th – Bee Day

I left work a few hours early to prepare for my bees at home. I made sure the smoker worked correctly, my bee suit fit fine, and the hive was ready with sugar syrup. Check, check, and (gasp) check!

All was in order, and I am beyond excited. I then picked up my son Kris from school, and went over to the bee apiary. As we got out of the car, there they were thousands and thousands of bees in screened boxes, and random bees flying all around. The sound was so melodious; just a loud buzz of all different tones, and the thick smell of honey lingering from the warehouse. ‘Wow’, I’m thinking – this is for real now, and ‘Holy crap!’, I’m really doing this.

Royal Draper with Drapers Super Bee Apiary gave me my box O Italian Honey bee’s, and ran through the steps of introducing them into there new home. Although I could hear him clearly, all that raced through my mind was ‘ blah blah blah’, or rather ‘buzz buzz buzz’. I think I was having a ‘pre-bee’ adrenaline rush!

Finally, Royal hands me my box of bees and Kris and I head out the warehouse door, to the car. I let Kris carry the box, so he could feel what 3lbs of buzzing bees felt like. Unable to contain myself, I stopped by my Mom and Dad’s place on my way home. My Dad thinks its really great, and my Mom thinks I’m really nuts!

Once I pull in my driveway, I started to get very nervous, but I felt I needed to I squash that feeling quickly, as I didnt want my bee’s feeling my funk – can bees feel funks?

Game face and bee suit on, I light the smoker. I grabbed my bee box, and walked down to the hive site. I slowly pried the lid off and the bees instantly started coming ouf ot the little hole next to the sugar can. I then opened the sugar syrup lid, which was harder than anticipated, with my big clunky gloves. The bees started coming out quickly. The queen bee was next to come out, as she is in her own little screened box with a small candy plug that usually needs to be pulled out. However, her fellow bees ate through it already and let themselves in to mingle. This was a good sign.

Then things got a bit hairy. I had to then dump out the rest of the bees into the hive from the box. I got as many as I could they came out in massive bee clumps but some stayed in the box and some where just flying all around me, bees everywhere!!! I placed the queen inbetween the middle frames still in her box, as she will come out when she is ready. I put the rest of the frames back in place and put the lid on. With a huge sigh of relief, and no stings, I realized I had done it! I transfered the bees with very few casualties and the queen was in place.

Kris stood back and took a few pictures, but he was so excited that taking pictures was the last thing he wanted to do. As I finished up I felt amazing, what a great experience and I cant wait for more to come!

In a few days I’m going to check and make sure the queen left her little box and see if there are any signs of her presence. I’ll also give them some more sugar syrup, as needed, and let those little miracles go to work! I’ve never felt anything like this, and so glad Kris was right there with me taking it all in.

May 9th, 2009 – Bee Keeping 101

Today is the day I get to pick up all the materials needed for my bee hive, minus the actual bees. Exciting none of the less! I was up at 6 am full of energy, which is so not like me. Kris and I are out the door by 7:30 am on our way to Draper’s Super Bee Apiaries to meet with Royal Draper, yep ‘Royal’, you cant get any cooler in the bee keeping world with a name like that.

As I drive there, I realize I can’t get this big cheesy grin off my face. We arrive and talk to Royal about my options, and thankfully, I have been reading up on beekeeping and trying to learn all the lingo.

Despite the many options and bee lingo, I think I was able to communicate with Royal who knows his stuff! I ended up with one assembled hive body, bottom board, sugar entrance feeder, smoker, gloves, bee suit….hee hee I get to wear a bee suit, so cool!!!

I will have to add on to the ‘hive body’ soon with more supers, but for now, I got just one. I figured one step at a time. I still haven’t set up any fencing, which will be an important factor in the survival of my hive. Bears are notorious honey robbers, so I must protect the hive with expensive fencing that may or may not work. I’ve looked at solar-powered electric fencing, which I thought would be ok, but according to Royal, I’ll need something more heavy-duty.

I do have the location already picked out. Back behind my house, there is a small open area with a spring fed swamp. Now all I need is fence and the bees! Next Saturday is Bee Day. I will get 3lbs of Italian honey bees… I wonder if I set out some pasta and meatballs when introducing them to there new home?

The journey continues: Click here to read on the details of how I will set up my bee hive.