Bee Yard Update - Oct. 10, 2012 - Feeding

This afternoon, I put a hive-top feeder filled with straw on both hives. It was cold and blustery, so the bees weren’t flying, which made the procedure a bit easier.

I filled each feeder with 2:1 sugar syrup, allowing 6 cups of sugar per hive (a little more than 6 cups liquid when dissolved in water – preparation 6 c boiling water, 12 c sugar, stir until dissolved. Let cool briefly before pouring into feeder).

Above each feeder, I replaced the inner cover, then topped it off with a honey super filled with insulation to help keep the heat in. Over that went the outer cover.

Time to get bees ready for winter!

If the bees are anything like mine at home, they should take all of the syrup down by tomorrow, when they will be fed again.

I explained the process of daily feeding to Judi, as I cannot be there each day to do it. I will check when I can. Although the bees have been fed using jars, they have been consuming all of the syrup until now. Hopefully, the process of feeding large quantities of syrup will let them store some honey for winter.

Oh yes, the electric fence is working quite well even though there wasn’t much sun today. My dog, Kiili, found out the hard way! I think her first visit to the Willow Springs beeyard did not favourably impress her! She opted to spend the rest of the visit in the car!

~JoAnne

Bee Yard Update - Oct. 1, 2012 - Mite-Free So Far

I did a 48+ hour sticky board check – all three hives appeared to be mite-free. Here’s hoping they stay that way until we figure out a good mite-prevention strategy.

Well, I did it. Combined Polly and Deanne today, after seeking advice. Now both are in the polystyrene hive, with the original Polly on the bottom. The upper polystyrene box was almost empty with undrawn foundation (bottom box was full of bees and honey), so I removed the box, then removed the frames and shook any bees out onto the landing board. Before replacing the box, I placed a single sheet of newsprint over the lower box and sprayed it liberally with vanilla. I then removed the brood frames from the wooden Deanne hive and placed them in the upper polystyrene box. There was enough drawn foundation in the Deanne hive to fill the rest of the box (I also replaced two frames in the bottom box that hadn’t been drawn out), ensuring that there would be drawn comb in which the bees would be able to store honey once I start feeding. I did not look for or kill any queens, as I am not sure that either hive had a good queen. So, let the strongest one survive, or rather, the one that survives being killed by the other hive’s workers. I will look at the hive again in two days. If I cannot find a queen, we will go ahead and requeen.

So, now we officially have two hives, Alistair and Polly.

I added a jar of 2:1 syrup to both of the hives. This should keep them going while the combined hive sorts itself out, and hopefully, will keep Alistair from robbing. We will keep this up until the hive top feeders are made and we can feed them more in a shorter period of time, forcing them to store the excess.

Within a few minutes of finishing, dark clouds started to roll in – done just in time!

~JoAnne

From your editor ... Beehives of Slovenia

Hi All! This is your current Bee Blog "administrator," Wendy. I just had to pop in with a post about some of the prettiest beehives on the planet - and they're in Slovenia! Perhaps all of you knew this already, but it was new to me when I saw it on a DVD of one of Rick Steves' old travel shows.

Slovenia considers itself an ancient source of the Carolinian bee (Apis mellifera carnica), its native bee, and has given it official state protection. Bee tourism is a growing industry in the area.

Of course, the good people of Slovenia have been keeping bees much longer than we have, and perhaps they've gotten so good at it that they have time to spare ... to paint their hives!

Visit this website for more on beekeeping in Slovenia.

Bee Yard Update - Sept. 28, 2012 - Sticky Boards!

Well, I finally made it back into the beeyard.

Alistair is doing very well. Both boxes are well-filled with bees, and there are some honey stores.

Polly is considerably smaller in size, nowhere close to filling the second box. However, the bottom box is full of bees. and there is also a small amount of honey.

Deanne is the smallest of the three, and the comb is spotty. Not sure why this is so, as the new queen seemed to be doing well last month. I found her and she looks small, but since this is my first time seeing her, I can’t compare her appearance now to what she looked like previously. There is no honey in this hive and the bees are quiet – almost sombre. I wonder if this hive should be requeened? It definitely needs some syrup immediately.

I also wonder if Deanne should be combined with Polly to build a strong second hive. I think Alistair is okay. I will need to talk to some other beekeepers about this, but if they are to be strong enough to resist mites, it might have to happen.

I prepared sticky boards for all three hives, even though they were tested in the summer. In light of recent findings of mites in the Thunder Bay area, I would feel better knowing they were done again.

I prepared disposable sticky boards as follows (x3).

I photocopied a 9”x12” grid pattern from a craft mat onto regular 8½” x 11” paper. I cut a piece of cardboard to roughly the same size, then stapled the gridded sheet to it. I attached a pull handle (not sure if it will be needed) to the narrow end of the cardboard piece using masking tape. I brushed a generous amount of Crisco/petroleum jelly (equal amounts) onto the grid. Covered it with an 8”x10” piece of hardware cloth (8 sq/in), and slid one into the front entrance of each hive, leaving the ‘handle’ exposed. We will look at them in 48 hours.

I also notched the inner cover of Polly, and applied a piece of hardware screen (8sq/in) to the opening in the cover, as indicated in the previous bee blog.

The next step will be to start feeding 2:1 syrup as soon as the sticky boards are removed and the hives have been united – if that is to be done. We will need to build two (or three) hive top feeders asap for this.

We also need to decide how to protect the bees during the winter. Again, I will speak with some other beekeepers.

Let’s see how Sunday’s sticky board results are first.

~JoAnne

Bee Yard Update - August 10, 2012

Well, we finally made it to the yard! We opened up the hives just to get a look at how the girls were filling the second brood boxes.

Alistair appears to be full, but there is space on the brood frames for more brood and honey stores. Since the main nectar flow is over, we are not going to put another box on, but will keep an eye on it. The brood pattern is classic for a healthy hive! There was no evidence of swarm preparations.

Polly is filling in the top box quite nicely. We looked at some of the frames. The outer ones have not been drawn yet, so we moved them in a bit. There is ample room for honey and brood. We realized that that the inner cover still needs to have a piece of hardware cloth placed over the feeder jar slot, and the front has to be notched. Until now, we have raised the outer cover a wee bit to allow bees to move in and out of the top box that protects the feeder jar, but with colder weather coming soon, that will have to change.

Oh yes, we did remove the oiled paper from the IPM board. I forgot to mention that. No evidence of varroa, and the pattern of debris along it reminded us of the scrap board technique used by Werner Gysi.

Deanne’s bees are slowly starting to move up into the second box. I would like to see this happen more quickly (I’m impatient), but since we requeened it, we can’t expect this to be happening any faster. The good news is that, yes we do have a new queen! Almost all of the brood cells in the two frames that were moved up into the second box are capped. They are flat, indicating that they are workers, and that the brood wasn’t chilled by the move. Within days we should have a vigorous young worker population to help with comb building, brood tending and nectar collection, a good thing with the end of the season approaching.

Other jobs that will need to be done include construction of feeder boxes for the fall, as well as entrance reducers. We also need to look at winter hive protection.

There won’t be any honey taken off this year.

Until next time,

~JoAnne

Bee Yard Report - July 26, 2012

I picked up 10 pierco/wood frames from Barry Tabor to use to put a second box on our newest nuc – Deanne. The bees have filled the bottom box and we want them to work on filling another box with bees, brood and honey before winter. To encourage them to move up, I moved up two frames of brood and honey. I couldn’t avoid moving some brood along with the honey. I am hoping that the weather is warm enough that the brood doesn’t chill. (I read somewhere that the presence of drones helps to keep the hive temperature elevated? They do a lot of ambling over the comb.).

At least the heat is cooperating! I saw the queen again, but there are still a lot of drones and relatively few workers, as before. There are no newly capped larvae yet, although there are new eggs and young uncapped larvae. Because of what I am seeing, I do think this is a new queen and it took her some time to get mated. I can't think of another reason why there would be a lag in new worker bees. Ayla is feeding them, and we are watching for robbing. Haven’t seen any evidence yet, but as the nectar flow subsides it may start. Which reminds me - we should put on an entrance reducer, just in case. Anyhow, the new super is on, and we will wait for a couple of weeks to see the workers emerge! I left Polly and Alistair alone after a quick peak into the top.

~ JoAnne

Bee Yard Report - July 20, 2012

Hive #1 “Alistair” - queen right, no new swarm cells, lots of honey and brood in brood boxes.

Hive #2 “Poly” - queen right, no swarm cells, starting to draw comb in second poly box.

Hive #3 Dean’s - “Deanne”? - all swarm cells (13) have hatched and have had sides chewed out. Found a queen, but don’t know if she is the original (drone layer), or a newly hatched and mated queen from the inserted swarm cells. There are fresh eggs, but won’t know if they are drone or worker until capped; however, eggs appear to have been laid in regular-sized cells. There is some capped brood, a few uncapped larvae from the (previous?) queen. Need to wait another 10 days to two weeks for capping shape to be evident. There is lots of honey in the brood box. Need to get a second brood box on ASAP. Have notified Judi and Ayla.

~JoAnne

TBBA Bee Day at Willow Springs - July 8, 2012

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.

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.

Bee Report - June 3, 2012

The Koski Store

We managed to install a wonderful old egg-yolk yellow (okay, honeybee yellow) wooden screen door, originally from the Koski Store (the original Willow Springs building) which had been left in one of the grounds' sheds. It was efficiently re-cut to fit and installed by Judi Vinni, who has been building willow furniture for years and is a fabulous woodworker and builder. 

The legendary door

We also finished the front walls, but we still didn't get to the electric fencing. We wanted to, but realized we didn't have the proper insulators for the 90-degree angle corners. Next week, after more consulting with the internet and searching for appropriate leftover and donated insulators and wire in our home sheds and garages, we plan to erect the electric fence. Yes!! (For those readers outside our area, electric fence is essential here to discourage visits by honey-loving bears.)

I love that everyone has an idea about how to make something work, like using an old screen door for a gate. How creative and unique is that!

~JoAnne Henderson

Beeyard in progress!

Bee Report - May 17, 2012

Got an excited phone call from our board chair Julie, saying that there was a swarm of bees in her friend's spruce tree in town, and did I want to come and get it as her friend was severely allergic to bees? Whoa! Could this be true?

Not only was it true, but the huge swarm was only three feet off the ground. The swarm had been in her tree for almost a week, but it seems that the cold weather had slowed down their scouting for a suitable hive space.


They appeared to welcome the box we gave them. We decided that until we had some form of critter protection in the new partially-constructed beeyard, we would keep the newly acquired hive close to the building, and provide a radio and light (not for the bees, but to deter overly curious night creatures). Ayla gave the new bees syrup to help them get settled. Good thing, as it rained for several days afterward (an understatement, as locals know) and the bees couldn't get out to forage.

~JoAnne Henderson

Bee Report - May 13th, 2012 - Mother's Day

The Willow Springs Bee Blog is back in action for another year!

Our imaugural WS beeyard event, held on Mother's Day, May 13, was to be the day that the beeyard posts went in and the electric fence was installed. Those of us involved thought we had planned this as thoroughly as we could via e-mail, but obviously, we were lacking in the visualization part of the process - that is, we all had a different vision of what the outcome would be! 

We ended up having an exclusive lesson on fencebuilding from Brian Biesenthal (Thanks Brian!), who patiently guided Ayla Ludwig and myself through post-hole digging (no big rocks thankfully), sinking posts, making sure they were vertical and in line with each other, and securing them in place. I guess we made it half way through our list - the posts went in, but the electric fencing didn't. Good thing, because I didn't know where to start with it.

During the ensuing two weeks since Mother's Day, Ayla, Judi Vinni, and several volunteers managed to put cedar on three sides of the yard, and build a platform for the hives. The idea behind the three almost-solid walls is not only to shelter the hives from north winds in winter and create a warm space to collect sun and heat, but to make the hives less noticeable from the road (Willow Springs is on the corner of Mapleward and Kam Current Roads). The front (south) wall will have cedar planks in between spaced electric wire, using spacing obtained from sources on the internet. The idea behind the alternating wood and wire is that, as a bear looks through the gap in the fence (trust us, this will happen), it will contact the wire - hopefully. The wood on the front should also make the hives less obvious to passers-by, and less threatening to those who are fearful of bees. It might also encourage the bees to fly up when they leave the hive - we will see if this works. :)

~ JoAnne Henderson (Willow Springs Volunteer)

Bee Report - August 29th, 2011

The bees were extremely busy at Willow Springs this afternoon! Not only were they occupied with bringing in pollen and nectar but with expelling drones (the male bees that are kept on stand-by for mating with new queens from other colonies). The workers were working tirelessly, trying to drive out as many drones as possible, piggy-backing on the more reluctant ones in an attempt to discourage them from returning. The population of bees was plentiful, however my observations led me to believe that they are gearing down for the fall and insuring that they have sufficient honey stores to carry them through the cold months to follow.

As an observation piece and to kill my curiosity, I placed a mint blossom at the entrance to see how the bees would react. At first they paid no attention to my little contribution but one worker got fed up and began wrestling with the flower in attempt to remove it from the landing strip. However, that wasn’t good enough for her - she went as far as insuring it was taken off of the wooden pallet that the hive rests on and depositing it onto the grass below. This odd and humorous behaviour I suspect is linked to the removal of drones and illustrates that the bees were slightly agitated with this laborious task.

~Paul Dosen

Bee Report – August 5th, 2011

When I arrived at Willow Springs this afternoon, the bees were extremely active, more active than I’ve ever seen them! Once I got myself established and was sadisfied that the bees were doing really well, I got the opportunity to meet Commercial Bee Keeper Barry Tabor, who was able to teach me how to properly use a hive tool and perform a basic hive inspection, to insure that the bees are doing what they’re supposed to be doing, and to determine the over-all health of the colony.

When I first lifted off the hive cover and exposed the top honey super, I noticed that the bees remained fairly calm, and were extremely tolerant of my inquisitiveness as I inspected the tops of the frames with my hand. Barry showed me how to use the hive tool to break the propolis seal that was securing the frame to the rest of the hive body. Propolis is a sticky, sap-like substance that the bees collect from trees in order to seal up any cracks in the hive. This substance also acts as an anti-bacterial agent and is used to insure that the hive is kept clean and free of mold and mildew that could potentially harm the colony.

I was given an opportunity to hold a frame with bees on it, which was a very enlightening experience for me, as I realized that the bees were so busy working the frame, that my presence didn’t affect them too much. We tried looking for the queen to insure she was laying properly, but unfortunately we had no such luck finding her. However, we did find some eggs that were layed recently, which led us to believe that the queen is alive and well. After our basic hive inspection was concluded, and I put back the frame that I was holding, I noticed that the bees were buzzing vigorously, which made red flags go up in my mind and encouraged me to close up the hive as quickly as possible. We were able to close the hive without killing too many bees and got the job done with Barry receiving only one sting!

To conclude the bees were extremely happy today, and the colony is doing extremely well!

Here are some photos - you can click on them to enlarge them:


"The Watering Hole"




"Bees Coming and Going"




"Paul and the Ladies"




"Getting Down to the Bees"




"Paul Working His Magic"




"Working Hands"




"Taking Out the Frames"




"Looking for the Queen"


~Paul Dosen

Bee Report – July 25th, 2011

When I arrived at Willow Springs this afternoon, it was raining quite a bit. The bees were fairly inactive when I approached the front of the hive. Today was my first day to crack open the hive and see how the bees were progressing! With Ayla’s help, we were able to take off the hive feeder and inner cover in order to get a good look. To our surprise the bees were lethargic and slow moving. The 10 frames of foundation were being built up slowly but due to poor weather conditions the bees weren’t able to get much work done in this area.

Luckily when Joanne came out to Willow Springs she gave the bees some frames of comb that were already drawn out, thereby giving the bees an opportunity to concentrate more on gathering pollen and nectar than constructing wax comb.

~Paul Dosen


Bee Report - July 11th, 2011

It was a nice day today at Willow Springs - the sun was shining, the wind was refreshing and the bees were buzzing!

Using the railing, I was able to navigate to the fence with ease in order to unplug it from its power source. I then was able to proceed, unhooking the electric fence and navigating to the hive on my own with very little difficulty. When I knelt down beside the hive it was a whirl of activity - the bees were coming and going paying little attention to my presence. The activity remained fairly consistent, with an occasional lull in activity every five minutes for a few seconds, then picked up again.

I noticed when I walked in front of the hive entrance, the bees created a ‘mini swarm’ outside the hive, curious as to what was standing in front of their home. Lucky for their sake, it wasn’t a bear! I also noticed a pesky fly trying to get into the hive. the sweet smell no doubt attracted her and she was trying every trick in the book to get inside. However, the guard bees were on full alert, patrolling the landing pad and surrounding area. The fly didn’t succeed but lived to fly another day as the bees did not take defensive action by stinging, but merely head-butting the fly off of the landing pad. It was a site to behold!

~Paul Dosen

Bee report – July 4th, 2011

When I arrived at Willow Springs today the bees were fairly active considering the rainy weather conditions. I was able to get up-close and personal with the bees, examining the entrance-way and bending my ear towards the entrance to see if I could detect any signs of life inside! The bees are fairly active inside the nest, a true hub of activity - notably the ‘fanning’ of the bees to keep the hive at a consistent temperature.

While observing the bees I was able to position myself right in their flight path to see how they would react and realized that they were more concerned about depositing their goods in the hive than getting me out of the way. However, when they started ‘crashing into me’ I decided to move back a little to avoid a fight with any returning foragers. In addition, I would like to conclude by mentioning that these bees are extremely happy and I look forward to working with them during the next few month.

~Paul Dosen

Bee Report – June 24th 2011

[Paul Dosen is a new young volunteer at Willow Springs, who doesn't let visual impairment get in the way of beekeeping! - Willow Springs Volunteers]

Upon my arrival at Willow Springs, my first challenge was to navigate my way to where the bee hive was located and remove the electric fence wire which ran horizontally across and connected to a latch on each spruce tree. After a while I got used to it, using one hand to trail along the wire while holding the disconnected wire in the other!

My next task was to lay wax foundation into 10 deep frames that were going to be added onto the bee hive so that the bees can continue working on hive expansion. It was quite a challenge bending the wax sheets into the frames and tucking them into the little slots on the inner part of the frame, and embedding the wax foundation into the horizontal wires that went across it. The wax foundation gives the bees a point of reference and acts as a guide for where they are to draw the wax comb, building a layer of wax on top of the foundation.

Next, we had to add this new brood box on to the hive and I noticed how the behaviour of the bees had changed from when I first arrived. The hive had been just opened and the bees were extremely investigative in nature, scrutinizing every move we made and paying close attention to our hands. When the hive was reassembled, the behaviour of the bees changed again, they were extremely curious investigating the hive boxes from top to bottom, propilizing any cracks that were visible to them and insuring that any nosey neighbours were kept at bay.

~Paul Dosen