Hey everyone! Thanks for coming to
Bee Day at Willow Springs on July 8! It was great to see everyone.
Here's a little background. We now have three hives. The first was a swarm caught in town very early in the year. It lived on the wheelchair ramp for almost a month until we had the bee-yard built and protected with an electric fence. By the time it was installed, it was ready to be split -
Bob Hughdie found swarm cells during a weekly inspection, so that made Hive # 2. Hive #3 was a nuc that Willow Springs purchased from
Dean Harron.
We purchased a polystyrene hive box from Betterbee (thanks
Beth!) to use for one of the hives, so visitors would have the opportunity to see one. I for one love it - and the bees seem to as well - they started drawing out the foundation on the black Pierco frames with no hesitation - probably due to being split - but comb-building is very obvious with white comb on black foundation! We will see how they handle it in cold weather. One minor down side is that the inner cover provided with the poly box won’t fit properly (bee space) over the wooden honey supers - it’s too big - the inner cover is designed to fit the wider poly box, so we will have to use a regular inner cover while the wooden honey supers are in place.
Barry Tabor brought an IPM bottom board for use on one of the hives - it has screening and a board that slides in and out on which paper and grease can be used to trap varroa and other critters for counting. Barry set this up, and we will inspect it.
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| Small Hive Beetle - persona non grata |
Rob Rupert, our bee inspector, brought everyone a Small Hive Beetle trap and explained its use. We will install it under one of the hives. I’m not sure if it will fit a polystyrene hive without being adapted in some way. Thanks Rob for your explanation. We will put the trap in when we check the hives next week.
Barry showed us an icing sugar roll to sample for varroa. It seems to be a very easy technique to use.
One thing we didn’t get to was hygienic testing - Barry could not perform the liquid nitrogen test - the bees in the selected hive must have known what he was planning because they wouldn’t let him near it! We also forgot to do the pin prick test ... unless someone did it and I missed seeing it happen.
So, what did we see when we opened the hives?
In #1, our first hive (named Alistair, after the person whose yard we recovered it from): one frame had 13 swarm cells on it!! None of the others had any. Good thing Barry looked. That frame went into Hive #3, which appeared to have either a laying worker or a drone laying queen - there were capped drone cells and drones everywhere. We never did find a queen. The idea of putting the swarm cells into this hive was to provide a new replacement queen and strong enough pheromone from the introduced brood to kick in the process. It should be stronger than any pheromone currently in the hive. Barry talked members through the process, and showed us frames so that we knew what to look for with a drone layer.
Hive #2, the poly hive (should we name it Polly?) [editor's note:
Wendy here - yes, call it Polly!], looked wonderful, strong and queenright, so Dean Harron used a frame from that hive to do his grafting demonstration. Sorry I missed it, but I hear it was excellent. Dean also showed members how to check for swarm cells by tipping a brood box on its end. Much less intrusive than pulling out frames. Thanks Dean.
I think that’s about it for the hive examinations.
Just as the hives were being reassembled, the heavens opened and dumped rain - whew! Some deluge! We all ran inside to start making pizzas and chat. Perfect timing. Unfortunately (not really, since the day was full anyway) we didn’t make it to the predator control portion of the day, as we were too busy making pizzas, eating and talking. A
predator-proofing handout will be e-mailed to members. Thanks to those who submitted suggestions. Sorry Bob and
Gerry that we didn’t get to see your suggestions in action, but thanks anyway! Thanks to
Diana for coordinating the food part of the event.
Oh yes, and we had a tailgate bee plant give-away/exchange. Several members potted up plants - the upshot of a discussion that we had at dinner with
Werner Gysi last month.
Vanderwees donated two trays as well. Thank you. Next year, we will have it earlier in the year so that the plants can get established before the heat sets in.
For a first-time event, with so many unknowns, it was very successful. The bees were on their best behaviour and gave our experts lots to work with and pass on to members.
Judi and
Ayla of Willow Springs were unfazed by our numbers - it seemed like at least 30 of us? - Fabulous turnout!! - and served the pizzas as quickly as the
Midnight Wench could turn them out, in the midst of kitchen renovations and the down pour.
From
Gerry Stricker, “Little bit of rain, & some people got a bit wetter than others, but we thought a good day. Good pizzas too! That outdoor oven works great! I appreciate the work that you, Judi & Ayla did.” Thanks Gerry!
I totally agree.
Thanks everyone!
JoAnne
P.S.: If anyone has photos, feel free to share! I wouldn’t mind seeing pics of stuff that happened throughout the afternoon. Thanks.
P.P.S.: In case you didn't notice the link above, here's the
Predator-Proofing Handout.
