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Melicious posted:Last week, I gave back the sickly nuc to my supplier and got another sickly nuc in return. We did the swap at night, so I couldn't get a look at it until I installed it the next day. Immediately was worried because of how small the population was, but figured I'd give it a week and see how it did. Went in a week later, no improvement- only 2 frames of brood despite the nuc having been given 5 fully drawn frames. A few cells with perforated caps and sacbrood looking larvae, a few drones being evicted from cells, and still a handful of sickly bees crawling around in front. They also had made a swarm cell that appeared to have larva in it- they definitely didn't have the population to swarm, so I refrained from cutting it off in case they were trying to supersede. Texted my supplier that I didn't want to be a pain, but this one wasn't looking good, either. He responded that I was making something out of nothing, that the nuc I gave back to him was totally fine, and this nuc probably just got wet and chilled. I told him I disagreed and would expect to see SOME growth from a nuc even in less-than-optimal weather conditions, but that I hoped he was right. That was Wednesday. That sucks. I had a similar thing happen to me last year. We got out of the winter with all hives (god bless), and I was in search for two more hives. I had a couple of options, one of them was a local beekeeper from the club I am in which is a pretty strange person....like, really, really strange. He knows his poo poo, and he breeds awesome queens, but he is very difficult to deal with. The other option was the guy I got my first hives from. He said he doesn't have any hives for sale, but his son-in-law sells some. I blindly trusted him, handed over the cash, brought the boxes and picked them up the next day without looking in to them. When I installed them at our place, and opened them up, I couldn't believe my eyes. All of the frames where pure black, like they never even cared about frame hygiene. On of the two hives was "semi-ok", sitting on like six frames. I removed most of the black frames and gave them fresh ones, the other one sat on something like three frames. I called the seller and told him that I am a bit puzzled in regard to what he offered and what we got. What followed were weeks of emails where he told me what I have to do with those two hives to get them back to strength, while I told him that I don't care about how to get a weak hive back to strength, I actually wanted good hives. He never moved a bit. The weak one of them didn't even survive the summer, allthough we tried everything (putting them in a split box, giving them brood from another hive, feeding them etc.). The queen was either super old, or damaged. I talked to the person we got the original hives, and told him that we are pretty upset about this, but didn't want to be the "complaining people" in the club, so he offered to give us a hive in exchange. Took another seven weeks to get that, and it was also super weak. We still care about both of them, it was a pain in the rear end to get them over the winter, and they are super slow to develop. We found another professional beekeeper who we now got hives from to expand, and he'll give us a couple of his (pretty awesome, I have to say) queens so we can change out the queens in time so they can get to the winter. They are not sick, don't have a lot of varroa, just lovely queens. The guy we get our queens from now is in the same club, and when we mentioned where we got them from, he immiditeally offered help. I know I'll never again pick up a box of bees without looking into them, simply because I (used) to trust the seller.
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Jun 2, 2019 17:38
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Hasselblad posted:Ugh. She's pretty alright, though. It didn't cover all of the eye-cluster, just a bit. We had some people over who were super interested in starting beekeeping, and wanted to look over our shoulders, and after marking two queens, they asked if they could put on the dot.....well....yeah...on the thorax, not on the rest of the queen 
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Jun 2, 2019 17:39
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Will be driving past the area I tried swarm trapping up in the mountains. Tempted to try again, but worried that if I catch one I do not have a hive ready to house it.
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Jun 2, 2019 18:59
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tuo posted:I know I'll never again pick up a box of bees without looking into them, simply because I (used) to trust the seller. Amen to that. Grabbed a queen from another local breeder today, actually from the Minnesota Hygienic line. I’ve been wanting to try one out for a while, so I’m kind of psyched to have been forced into it. I cut out the existing queen cells, slid in a frame of eggs, young larvae and nurse bees from my strong hive, and installed the cage this afternoon. The bees were all super chill, hopefully everything goes well. 
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Jun 3, 2019 01:16
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Two calls in two days in regard to swarms in the city. Someone send help, I am quickly running out of boxes to put them in 
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Jun 5, 2019 13:20
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Did a removal today that was way more of a pain than it should have been. Maintenance workers at the apartment had sealed the original entrance with spray foam a few weeks ago so the bees were coming and going like eight feet away from where the hive actually was. Took almost two hours to actually find the bees but luckily it was smooth sailing from there, apart from how annoying it is to do a removal that's under the floor. Looked like they had prob swarmed recently but we got eggs and are hopeful we got the queen so all in all a decent job
Wizard Mannequin fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Jun 6, 2019 |
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Jun 6, 2019 05:22
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Hive had a visitor. Whatever it was passed through my 2 wire electric fence without knocking over any stakes.
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Jun 7, 2019 18:42
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Crap, one of my new queens seems to have not been mated correctly. She started laying eggs (one egg per cell, perfectly in the middel, at the bottom, so I'm pretty sure it's an actual queen, no worker), but most (75%) of the eggs are drones, so the typical wavy brood pattern emerged. (what's the english term for this? In german it's Buckelbrut, so maybe humpback-brood?) If I find her and remove her, how long should I wait before adding a new mated, caged queen? Two days, three days? I'd also add some brood from another hive so the bee mass doesn't get too low in the meantime. tuo fucked around with this message at 12:24 on Jun 11, 2019 |
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Jun 11, 2019 12:21
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BrainParasite posted:Hive had a visitor. Whatever it was passed through my 2 wire electric fence without knocking over any stakes. Wow, it actually toppled the hive over? Did the hive survive it somehow, or was it too cold?
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Jun 11, 2019 12:26
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tuo posted:Crap, one of my new queens seems to have not been mated correctly. She started laying eggs (one egg per cell, perfectly in the middel, at the bottom, so I'm pretty sure it's an actual queen, no worker), but most (75%) of the eggs are drones, so the typical wavy brood pattern emerged. (what's the english term for this? In german it's Buckelbrut, so maybe humpback-brood?) Bullet Brood. Indicative of inbreeding at the mating yard, not just running out of sperm. Bee genetics are weird. Bees don’t have a separate sex chromosome like us, but instead have a sex gene. Fertilized (diploid) eggs that get heterozygous (different) sex genes from egg and sperm are female. Unfertilized eggs (haploid) will develop into typical drones. However, eggs that get fertilized with a sperm containing a sex gene that is homozygous (matching) to the one in the egg will develop into diploid or biparental drones. Sperm like this might be provided by the drones made by a close relative to your queen, such as that might be found in a closed-line breeding program. The queen thinks that she is laying a regular fertilized worker egg into a worker cell, but because the egg is homozygous for the sex determining gene, the resulting larvae is diploid male, requiring more space. No room to the side, so the workers expand the cappings up, resulting in the buckelbrut appearance.
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Jun 11, 2019 14:22
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Thanks for the very informative post. I learned in the queen breeding course which I visited this year, though, that (normally) diploid brood is not raised by the workers/get's removed by them. Guess that's wrong, then... Incest is totally possible....there are only about two beekeepers within maybe ten kilometres, and allthough I introduced four new hives with foreign geneseed, it's totally possible that this queen was mated by their own drones (I'd have to check my recording, but IIRC it might even be that I had this hive create a new queen from eggs from another hive at the same place....so even more chance for incest there).
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Jun 11, 2019 14:43
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tuo posted:Thanks for the very informative post. I learned in the queen breeding course which I visited this year, though, that (normally) diploid brood is not raised by the workers/get's removed by them. Guess that's wrong, then... In a typical hive, they would be removed, but there might only be a couple of them per frame. It’s one of the reasons even a super active hive will have small gaps or holes in the brood pattern. When they become the majority, however, it seems like the workers give up and hope for the best. The drones, at least, offer the hive the ability to pass on their genetic data, even if they can’t replace the queen.
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Jun 11, 2019 14:48
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ShotgunWillie posted:In a typical hive, they would be removed, but there might only be a couple of them per frame. It’s one of the reasons even a super active hive will have small gaps or holes in the brood pattern. When they become the majority, however, it seems like the workers give up and hope for the best. The drones, at least, offer the hive the ability to pass on their genetic data, even if they can’t replace the queen. That makes sense, thank you!
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Jun 11, 2019 14:49
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tuo posted:Wow, it actually toppled the hive over? Did the hive survive it somehow, or was it too cold? They're fine, though maybe a little more defensive. Thankfully we didn't have the frame feeder in. We suspect a small bear just based on what could fit between our ropes and slash the mesh like that.
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Jun 12, 2019 14:15
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So my sickly nuc where they booted the queen seems to be doing okay. Larvae looks super healthy so far but it hasn't been long enough for any new adults yet. They're eating like crazy, though, and bringing in tons of pollen. Also, boy howdy now that I've gotten a look at the queen out of her cage, is she beautiful. Really nice brindle coloring. The bees still aren't building on the foundation frames, though, and have completely ignored a frame of drawn old comb that came with the nuc. I wedged it between two frames of brood, hopefully they'll start using it. At least there's no signs of disease... yet. The other hive, from the same breeder who told me I was overreacting about the lovely nuc, is worrying me. It arrived much larger than the lovely nuc, and the bees continue to build comb like crazy. The queen is laying well, but every inspection I'm seeing a few cells of what looks like sacbrood or something similar- capped brood that's being opened up and carried out by the workers. There's also always a few sickly bees in front of the hive. I was hoping things would right themselves with a good nectar flow, but it seems to be staying roughly the same. Of course, the weather has been absolute poo poo all season, just constant rain and barely any days above 60 degrees, so I'm sure that's not helping. The weird thing is that I'm only seeing the brood funkiness on 2 frames- 2 clearly rather old frames that came with the nuc. No signs of issues (so far) on any of the fresh wax frames despite tons of brood. Maybe it's coincidental, maybe not? They're also backfilling those old frames with a shitload of pollen so there's less and less space on them for her to lay, which seems doubly weird since they're right in the middle of the nest. I figure I should pull the old frames just to be safe, though I'm not holding my breath it'll solve anything. Do y'all think I should just soldier on and see how things go? Or should I just pinch and replace this other queen, too, right now?
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Jun 21, 2019 19:42
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Melicious posted:So my sickly nuc where they booted the queen seems to be doing okay. Larvae looks super healthy so far but it hasn't been long enough for any new adults yet. They're eating like crazy, though, and bringing in tons of pollen. Also, boy howdy now that I've gotten a look at the queen out of her cage, is she beautiful. Really nice brindle coloring. The bees still aren't building on the foundation frames, though, and have completely ignored a frame of drawn old comb that came with the nuc. I wedged it between two frames of brood, hopefully they'll start using it. At least there's no signs of disease... yet. From my relative novice perspective I think you are overthinking things. If the bees are doing things, I would tend to trust they know what is best and what they need better than we humans do. I’d just allow them to be bees and allow them to make the decisions.
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Jun 21, 2019 23:40
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Question to fellow beekeepers here: what are your experiences in regard to water feeders for bees? In the past, I used couple of bowls, filled with moss, which I water every day. The bees love that, and are sitting on the moss, taking in water all the time. Problem is: we now have nearly 40°C/104°F here, and the thing basically dries out within half an hour. Last year I used larger feeding boxes, with corks, but regularly, birds would use it and also poo poo into it. Stupid birds. So for this hot season, I bought a couple of the water feeders which you shove through the entrance hole. But I am currently not sure if that's a good thing. The bees are loving them, but currently the water reservoir sits at > 104°F in the bright sunshine, and I fear that this thing is evaporating moisture into the hive (which the bees than have to deal with). So I am thinking of building some kind of bee water feeder with a small water pump, hooked up to a timed circuit (so it pumps for a minute or so, every ten minutes or so), and pumps the water into a small basing with moss, which all the hives can visit. What do you all do to keep the girls hydrated?
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Jun 27, 2019 09:05
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I used a home depot 5gal bucket, with stuff floating in it like sticks and whatever. Stayed reasonably full of water for a few days, and I'd periodically dump it and hose it out. The plastic exposed to the sun gradually degraded, so that's not an excellent idea, but it worked and was cheap.
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Jun 27, 2019 19:47
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My bees drink from the koi pond in my backyard. E: This was a pretty lame post, honestly I need a better bee friendly water source. Thank you Tuo, this something wasn't I considering. Johnny-on-the-Spot fucked around with this message at 11:02 on Jun 29, 2019 |
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Jun 28, 2019 20:35
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I have a shallow plastic bowl about 2' wide and 4" deep that I grabbed some wild watercress for. We have separate irrigation water and I connected a hose to the "pool" that is on constant drip. They have quite an easy time getting to both the water in the pool as well as the wet ground below. Did further inspections of the warre and layens a couple days ago. They had begun to build comb straight out from the walls in a couple places, but after removing it and shuffling a couple bars around so that a full built comb was adjacent to those surfaces, they seem to be back on track. Still working with no protective gear, no smoke, and nowhere near a sting. At most a couple have landed on my hands and walked around a little and then flew off. Really loving the carnolians. No idea if it is the breed, the topbar style hives, or a combination. Enjoying the hell out of them however. Come autumn I will take more precautions given their relatively protective nature that time of year.
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Jun 29, 2019 17:11
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Not a beekeeper, but my old place had a birdbath in the yard that I would use for watering local bees. Just put a few flat stones in the basin so the girls have somewhere to land. They loved that poo poo.
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Jun 29, 2019 21:22
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Bees on Wheat posted:Not a beekeeper, but my old place had a birdbath in the yard that I would use for watering local bees. Just put a few flat stones in the basin so the girls have somewhere to land. They loved that poo poo. Yeah, I use something similar. I started with small stones, but quickly moved to moss as it soaks up the water better. Problem is: we currently have such high temperatures that the thing is dried out within two or three hours (plus the bees drinking at it like crazy) and I can't be there permanently to fill it up. I now put a couple of these things in use:  works pretty good, and they last for about a day and a half per hive, so I can fill them up in the morning. Downside is the smaller hive opening, which currently leads to some traffic jam/bee jam. I like the idea mentioned above about one of those slow-drip hoses. I have couple of them around somewhere, guess I'll build something for next year. I am always astonished of how the bees actually manage to keep the temperature even inside the hive, even if the world outside is burning to a crisp.
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Jul 1, 2019 11:14
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But really I think the simplest thing to use is a basin with floating pond plants. The plants shade the water (less evap), keep algae down, and give a ton of places for bees to hang out and fill up.
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Jul 1, 2019 15:46
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I became a beekeeper on Thursday! Ordered my nuc in February, and my colony was finally ready to be picked up last week after a somewhat slow start to the season here in southern Ontario. As recommended, I've been feeding them sugar syrup through an entry feeder pretty similar to what tuo posted 2 posts up (mine's a 3D printed tray with an upside-down mason jar on it). The bees are currently working on their last 1/2 L of the batch of 5 L of 1:1 syrup mixture I made for them last week. I've read that an entry feeder is great because they prefer flower nectar and you'll be able to tell when they stop consuming what's in the feeder and they don't need it any more. I'm pretty sure the feeder's not just dripping steadily on its own, but some small part of me is concerned that it might be and they'll just keep cleaning up after it, and I'll just keep feeding them indefinitely. Question: How much sugar syrup should they go through before I can expect they're ready to beeeee self-sustaining? Or do I just keep refilling until after I've inspected (aiming for this coming weekend, which'll be 10 days after install) and been able to determine that they're drawing comb, harvesting pollen & nectar, and making baby bees effectively?
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Jul 3, 2019 02:30
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Hasselblad posted:But really I think the simplest thing to use is a basin with floating pond plants. The plants shade the water (less evap), keep algae down, and give a ton of places for bees to hang out and fill up. Can't do that, sadly. I'd have to elevate it quite a lot, as we have runner ducks...they'd poo poo that thing up in no time.
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Jul 3, 2019 08:18
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anitsirK posted:I became a beekeeper on Thursday! Ordered my nuc in February, and my colony was finally ready to be picked up last week after a somewhat slow start to the season here in southern Ontario. It's hard to give an absolute amount of how much you should feed, as it's dependant on the hive and how it develops. Give them small amounts of syrup at a time (it becomes bad quite quickly), and regularly check that the queen still has enough room to lay eggs. The constant flow of syrup should get them to expand quickly. As long as they have room to grow, "overfeeding" is actually pretty hard to do, imo. It can be a problem with splits which are waiting for the queen to get mated, as they actually can fill up everything with food so the queen can't create a nice brood nest once she's ready, but even then the bees normally reorganize the food and bring it to the sides of the hive. Also make sure the entry is small enough for them to defend it. The smell of the syrup might attract some unwanted visitors. I also worried with my first splits as they started to put food and polllen right in the middle of the center frame once the queen hatched, but my beekeeping teacher told me it's totally fine, that the queen will actuall start laying exactly in the middle of this frame, and the bees caring about the fresh brood don't have to travel far to get food ....and exactly that happened. The new brood actually "ate through" the food they prepared there, and once the brood nest was established, new food went around it (top of the frame, and side of the box).
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Jul 3, 2019 08:30
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Adding to this: don't be alarmed if there is increased flight activity once you start feeding. Bees have no way of communicating to others that food is right within the hive. They can only tell the others "that and that angle in regard to the sun, and so and so far to fly". They don't have a dance for "it's right here, within our box, you idiots". I got quite a shock when I started feeding my bees for the very first time, and saw a lot of flight activity right around the entry. I immidiately thought they are robbing each other, but it's actually pretty normal for the first couple of hours after you add food inside the hive for them to fly out, think "wait, my internal satnav tells me to make a u-turn as soon as possible", and come back to realize the food is inside the hive.
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Jul 3, 2019 12:04
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So I added one more empty frame between this one and the next one. They are filling up the top of the frames really fast, but do not seem to be interested in the bottom thus far. After this last frame I am going to hold off on adding more, in the hopes that they begin filling in the bottom. Plenty of pollen available, water source at the hives, nights finally in the upper 40s, highs in the 80s (F) The (13) frames on the far side are the active ones, the middle cover is the open feeding space, and the nearest are some spare frames to swap in as needed. 
Hasselblad fucked around with this message at 17:11 on Jul 3, 2019 |
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Jul 3, 2019 17:08
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Hasselblad posted:So I added one more empty frame between this one and the next one. They are filling up the top of the frames really fast, but do not seem to be interested in the bottom thus far. After this last frame I am going to hold off on adding more, in the hopes that they begin filling in the bottom. Plenty of pollen available, water source at the hives, nights finally in the upper 40s, highs in the 80s (F) Did you add starter strips of wax or is there a an edge for them to start off of? Bees will often not draw out spaces like that without some kind of coaxing or frame manipulation that moves or draws them into the space.
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Jul 3, 2019 17:27
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El Mero Mero posted:Did you add starter strips of wax or is there a an edge for them to start off of? Bees will often not draw out spaces like that without some kind of coaxing or frame manipulation that moves or draws them into the space. The top has a strip of waxed foundation. The middle "bar" is angled so that it forms a downward facing edge.: 
Hasselblad fucked around with this message at 17:51 on Jul 3, 2019 |
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Jul 3, 2019 17:44
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Just out of interest: what exactly is the benefit of the angled middle bars, instead of using a round one like on the bottom? Is it for bees to pass through?
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Jul 5, 2019 11:49
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tuo posted:Just out of interest: what exactly is the benefit of the angled middle bars, instead of using a round one like on the bottom? Is it for bees to pass through? That is the theory. Angled gives them the wedged line to start building on, like the top bars of the warre. Holes are meant for easy movement of the cluster in winter.
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Jul 5, 2019 13:30
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Yeah, sometimes the bees haven't read the books. Even with angled bars/starter edges I've sometimes needed to introduce bees to big spaces (moving frames into the spot, maybe putting sugar water over there) or otherwise coaxed them into those spots (you can add wax to the bottom of the wedges.) Also, keep an eye on how they're building when they start. Just because there are wedges doesn't mean they won't build perpendicular to the frames.
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Jul 5, 2019 14:49
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Just as a reality check, would it be reasonable for a Nuc purchased this year to have boomed in population enough to actually be showing signs of swarming? The nuc felt like a strong one, but my last inspection they hadn't even finished building out all frame in the brood box.
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Jul 5, 2019 17:26
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How strong was it created? What are the signs for swarming? Queen cells, and if, are they all on the outer part of the frame, or some in the middle? e: just to add: I created four splits this year, way stronger than in the past (because I had trouble in the past getting them over the winter). Three of them swarmed (managed to catch two of them) when hatching. So now I have six, five of which are pretty strong, just a single one who needs a bit more love. So yeah, as said above, bees don't read books.... tuo fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Jul 6, 2019 |
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Jul 6, 2019 17:08
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One queen cell uncapped, in the middle of a middle frame. None elsewhere as far as i can see. Supposedly there was a notable ball that was at high treetop level that apparently eventually dispersed. Its hard to know because i wasnt present when they were doing this i heard about it and rushed to my hives but they seemed okay when i arrived just big groups outside the entrances presumably to escape the heat and humidity. I opened up both hives and the population seeems fine.
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Jul 6, 2019 18:59
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Hmm....cell in the middle of the frame doesn't sound like swarming, imo
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Jul 6, 2019 21:13
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I have no explanation. I pulled the supers off and had a quick glance but the population didnt seem notably lower. I have a friend who knows a little more than me coming by tomorrow and I'm going to pull frames with him as my reality check.
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Jul 6, 2019 21:20
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tuo posted:Hmm....cell in the middle of the frame doesn't sound like swarming, imo I might be remembering wrong, but I thought it was an emergency swarm cell if it was in the middle of the frame? Like they turned brood that wasn't originally intended to be a queen into a queen. Supercedure cells are the peanut ones at the edges of the frame I thought.
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Jul 8, 2019 13:40
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Hah, my luck wore out. My fault entirely. Noticed in my windowed warre box section the girls were cross combing and building in a hurry. Kept me up half of the night trying to decide whether to simply leave it till that box is harvested for honey. Decided to tackle it this AM and straighten it out, before it got too warm out and too soft a wax. It wasn't an entire mess, and I was able to cut/moosh/straighten and remove what needed dealt with, almost kind of getting it presentable (but will likely go right back to crazy comb as they were not 100% perfect. Maybe 75%. Of course I was over confident and while I had a smoker, it was weak, and I didn't bother with the space suit. Just sweat pants and a white teeshirt. A bee flew behind one of my lenses of the glasses I was wearing and I reached up to take them off and spooked one that must have been hovering near my forehead under the brim of my hat. ZOT! At the same time a small section of comb I was cutting fell on the ground causing a few of the girls to be less than pleased. Thankfully I was able to toss the hat on the ground and slowly walk away quickly (that is how it felt). As I was still holding a bar with a bit of comb and a lot of bees, I calmly walked back to the spare box I had next to the hive and place it in temporarily. I re-lit the smoker, puffed a bit, and then got back to work, feeling that it was more important to get everything back together and sealed than my own welfare. Saved some of the comb I removed. Lesson learned: if not wearing protective gear, at least make certain the smoker is well smoky. I got off easy with the one sting. After getting reorganized I decided to make use of the spare comb. So giving thought to the earlier posted concern about the Layens frames and lack of comb under the "mid-bars" I did some bee-work. I took a couple well shaped comb pieces and pressed them on two spare frames under the mid-bars. They were not too large to pull themselves off. The wax was mooshable enough that I press/smeared the base of the comb to seat them well. Opened up the layens to put them in and saw that the frame I put in last week was already built up and filled with capped honey. Placed the two "new" frames between that built frame and the rest and closed her up. This afternoon I think I will take some of the other comb sections I had from prior inspections and attach them to a couple more empty frames. If they are building this quickly and filling the comb up, I may as well take advantage while the iron is hot. If the few "waxed" frames get them building in the bottom space all the better. The way things are going I may build a second Layens hive in the off-season and populate it with (if all works out) overwintered split. The Layens is SO much easier to work with. May allow the girls from here on out build however they like in the warre and only bother them in the spring to feed and harvest honey. Here's to hoping that one girl did not die for nothing and the warre gets straightened out. Either way I will let them do what they do in that hive. Edit: added comb to a couple more empty frames and installed. Up to 22 frames now (equating to ~44 deep frames) Hasselblad fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Jul 8, 2019 |
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Jul 8, 2019 16:26
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