Bee Vlog - November 4, 2012

Hive weigh-in: Both hives weigh 117 lbs. It's interesting that they are at the same weight now when, previously, Queen Anne was significantly out weighing Queen Beatrice.

It's been nearly a month since I've been able to observe the bees on a nice, sunny, warm day. Today it was 63 F when I paid them a visit. Activity levels between the hives have seemed to switch patterns. Queen Anne was relatively quiet while Queen Beatrice was the busy one.

Queen Anne has been fighting a bad case of varoa mites. I've been seeing dead larva that have been pulled from their cells and deposited outside the hive. They've had dead mites attached to them. I suspect (or hope) that this is actually a good thing: that the bees are dealing with the infestation by removing the larva and thus breaking the mites' brood cycle. In the process though, they are also seeing a drop in population as the summer bees die off and new winter bees are fewer due to their culling methods. It should be interesting to see how well they do over winter.

I have no inclination to apply any kind of mite treatments. I don't believe it to be a beneficial long-term solution. I'll be very saddened to lose them of course, but I'd rather have good genetic stock that can handle mites themselves than start treating. It's better, not only for my bees, but the other bees in the area. If this colony can survive the infestation then they have superior genes and they will pass on these traits to other neighboring colonies. Otherwise their weaker genetics will die off. It's harsh, but that's really the way of nature. If I treat the mites then I encourage the survival of weaker genetics, and also breed stronger mites. Both results are contrary to the goal.


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Photos featured in the video:

A dead larva with 2 dead mites attached, and half of a dead bee.

A view of the larva where the mites are visible.

Queen Anne's bottom board: lots of dead bees and larva. Looks to me like the workers aren't able to keep up with the cleaning work, either because of all the rain or the death rate...or both.

Queen Beatrice's bottom board, just to show the contrast between the 2 hives.

Bee Vlog - September 29, 2012

I built a portable hive scale from the design over at beehacker.com, but had not used the originally intended L-brackets of the design and had used some narrower ones instead. This didn't work well at all, so I upgraded my build to use the correct, stronger L-brackets, which works much better.


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I've had a lot more practice and experience lighting up the smoker now. I had several failures early on and was quite frustrated with it. You'd think it to be a simple and easy thing to do. Well, it is if you do it right and I was doing it wrong. After some more YouTube research and advice from a comment on one of my other videos I finally got a much better technique. Now the smoker lasts me a good hour or more. I could also extend that time if I filled it even more. Sometimes if I leave the smoker for 10-15 minutes it can look dead, but I just give it a couple puffs and it comes right back to life.


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Hive weigh-in -
Queen Anne: 130.4 lbs (probably a more reliable weight after fixing the scale)

This is the final "open hive" inspection for Queen Anne this year. I went through the lower 2 boxes, but didn't go through every frame. I still got to see the queen though, which is very surprising and lucky. Everything looked good. I have no concerns about them surviving the winter. But I also don't really know what to expect.

I installed an entrance reducer. The hive entrance is only 1/2 inch tall, so I'm not worried about mice getting in, but the yellow jackets are getting really aggressive right now. I'm just giving them a smaller entrance to guard.

It's going to be tough not getting to open the hive up for the next few months. I'll still be doing external inspections and taking hive weights, which don't require opening the hive.


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I signed up for a free hive tracking website (HiveTracks.com) that has some cool features for mobile, on-site, record keeping. In this video I do a quick overview of some of the mobile features and demonstrate creating a hive inspection record.

It's a pretty cool site with many convenient features. However, I would like it if there was a mobile app available that would work offline and sync with the online database. This would make it possible to do onsite records without a data plan or if you're in an area that did not have data service.

I didn't cover it in the video, but I also like the map feature on the website. You can have the option to publicly share your location with other users. It doesn't share any details publicly, just a pin on the map. The nice thing about this is you can see how many other sites are in the vicinity. Although, it would be nice if there was an of indicator of how many hives are at each site. Having 20 neighbors with 1 or 2 hives is very different from having one neighbor with 500 hives.


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Hive weigh-in -
Queen Beatrice: 104 lbs (probably a more reliable weight after fixing the scale)

This is the final "open hive" inspection for Queen Beatrice this year. I lucked out here too and got to see the queen. Their population is smaller than Queen Anne, but they still seem strong and capable. It should be interesting to see how well they do through winter.


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(This post added to Beeline Buzz Hop #1. Check it out to see what other beekeepers are up to.)

Bee Vlog - September 11, 2012

No inspection, just Bee Zen.

What is it about watching bees busy at work that is so relaxing? Sit back and enjoy 10 minutes of Bee Zen meditation at the entrance of Queen Beatrice's hive. I recommend adjusting the YouTube settings to hi-definition & full-screen.


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And another 10 minutes with Queen Anne's hive.


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Bee Vlog - September 10, 2012

After about 48 hours with the bee escape in place, the honey super still had 100+ bees in it. I'm not sure if it was because the weather had cooled a little and activity slowed, or if it's typical for so many bees to just stay behind. I tried blowing them out and brushing, but the method I finally ended up using was "blasting" with a leaf blower. That's not something I'll be doing ever again. It didn't really seem that effective (the bees can hold on really well) and it seemed to be doing more harm than necessary. Next time I'll be more prepared with an empty box and just use the brush.

A couple frames of comb were extra thick, so to restore proper frame spacing I tried "thinning" the comb by cutting off the faces. Another big FAIL. I ended up just harvesting that entire frame via "crush and strain" and I'll save the honey for any emergency feeding during the winter. (Yes, I tasted it. Yes, it's DELICIOUS!) The rest of the frames were given as-is to Queen Beatrice.

After I got the honey super into the kitchen I spotted a nasty little varoa mite. So there's no doubt that Queen Anne's hive has mites. Every beehive has mites, so I'm not too worried. I don't know how bad the infestation is, but I don't see any signs of weakness or disease in that hive. Again, I won't be treating and I'll just leave it up to the bees to deal with them their own way. It may seem cruel to just let it happen, but I think it's more cruel to treat with pesticides that can also harm the bees. I also believe there's no real helpful or effective treatment.


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Bee Vlog - September 8, 2012

Hive weigh-in:
Queen Anne: Unknown (very heavy)
Queen Beatrice: 89 lbs (+4.4 lbs from 2 weeks ago)

Today's inspection involved mapping out the hive and relocating a couple frames to move the drone comb out of the center of the nest. I'll be moving some honey from Anne to Beatrice, so to clear out the extra honey super on Queen Anne I'm using a bee escape board. I'll come back after 24 hours to check on it.

If I just wanted to keep the 2 hives and not do any expansion in the spring then I'd be fine with leaving the honey where it's at and leave Queen Beatrice as is. It would be a good experiment to see how well they were able to survive through the winter with just the stores they gathered themselves.

However, I do want to expand next spring and I want to make sure Queen Beatrice makes it through the winter. It seems like Queen Anne has enough stores to spare so I'll be taking some of it and sharing it. Of course, doing this also runs the risk of taking too much away from Anne, so I'll be keeping a close eye on them through the winter to make sure they don't starve.


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Bee Vlog - August 25, 2012

Hive weigh-in:
Queen Anne - (Too heavy to get a good reading, but I got individual readings of the boxes)
Boxes 1 & 2 together containing the brood nest, some food storage, and the bottom board: 72.4 lbs
Box 3 alone: 62 lbs (about 50 lbs of just honey)
Box 4 alone: 43.6 lbs (about 30 lbs of just honey)
Queen Beatrice - 84.6 lbs (+4.2 lbs from 2 weeks ago)

In today's inspection I talk a little about my efforts in treatment-free beekeeping. I do some cell size measurements and explain the importance of cell size to maintaining a healthy treatment-free hive. Queen Anne's cells are still measuring at 5.4mm...the same as the foundation they came from. Her daughters are the 1st generation to be raised in a foundationless hive, so they are still drawing out cells to the same size. It's going to take a few generations to get them to regress to a smaller cell.

Queen Beatrice's cells are a little smaller though - ranging in size from 5.1 to 5.4mm. This tells me they were either a feral hive, once managed a few generations ago, or came from a managed foundationless hive that has had a few generations since they have used foundation. Either way they're likely from strong survivor stock. A very good sign.

Housel positioning seems to be a controversial subject. Here are two differing opinions/resources.

BeeSource: Housel Positioning – How I View Its Importance To Beekeeping!
Bee Natural Guy: Housel Positioning – Seeing is believing. Or is it?

Some beekeepers swear by it while others seem to notice no difference. I was curious to see if I could observe my bees creating a Housel pattern naturally. But that just doesn't seem to be the case. I saw on a few frames that the pattern can vary across a single frame. There doesn't seem to be any uniformity. I believe that the bees don't really seem to care about such things. I suspect there's some placebo effect at play for the beekeepers that notice improved behavior when positioning their foundation in a Housel pattern.


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Highlight - A Plea for Bees' Needs: Dr. Elizabeth Elle

In this video, Dr. Elizabeth Elle gives a great lecture on what we (all) can do to support backyard biodiversity. Her talk includes 4 important points:

1. Why should we care about bees?
2. Are the bees in trouble?
3. What is a bee anyway?
4. What can I do?

One thing I really liked about the talk was how much information she gave about, not just the honey bee we're most familiar with, but about the other native bees and how we can support their populations as well.

It's nearly an hour long, so grab some popcorn and enjoy!

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