Back home, fixing things...

(Specific bars will now be referred to as B#)

I was wrong...there are bees in Barrow! Back home with lots of new bee information from Univ of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF). Visited the Georgeson Botanical Gardens. Examined their test site for bee hives, including the top bar hive! As so often happens...another visitor, Jerry Teer from Texas, appeared who had been a beekeeper in Texas for many years--he started as Jody and I have with one hive and ended with a small business of 90 hives a few years later…we are not going to do that! Jerry and I spent almost an hour talking bees (while his wife Nell waited patiently)--I heard some fascinating stories, such as how his daddy kept bees in a piece of hollowed-out tree trunk about 24" across, with branches across the top and covered with a piece of sheet metal (sounds like a top bar hive?!). Together we took measurements and pictures...Jody and I plan to build a top bar hive this winter (see what I mean, really only one more).  I learned so much from him and got answers to some of the issues I needed to research and so have things to do with the bees when I return home: put the sticky board back in place flush with the bottom of the hive (bees want dark and a sealed hive--the open wire mesh bottom requires too much energy to defend their hive from robber bees which will come in to steal honey and kill the queen); check for new eggs and larvae to be sure queen is viable since I found three queen cells on B4 last week and if she is, remove those queen cells--unless they've already hatched and then it's a whole new ball game...and another learning experience no doubt; close off some of the lower entrances as the bees only need a small entrance (entrances were opened for ventilation but that should not be an issue now--Jerry suggested drilling holes at top corners if ventilation is still a problem and bees will close them with propolis or open them as needed); add empty bars on each side of bars that have honey cells--according to Jerry cross combing is caused by too large of a space between bars and one should wait until the bees have drawn and sealed honey cells and then add bars between, not before...so I'll try that, too.

            The next day I returned to visit with Pat Holloway, Director, about bees and the Alaskan experience...again I must say, bee people are so nice and willing to share information. Most important she says to remove queen cells regularly when found if current queen is viable, determined by condition of brood, which means hive inspection every 7-10 days. The sad part of honey bees in Alaska is that they cannot survive the harsh winters, even on the coast. Pat indicated that they must cage the queen during summer so she stops laying eggs and the workers will focus on foraging for honey. And then the bees must “go” in September when they will start eating the honey to survive; since I'm not so into honey production, this seems harsh to me although I must consider that the bees would not survive the winter anyway...it's been tried. We discussed shipping the bees to the lower 48 for the winter and returning them the next spring; someone in Delta, AK tried that last fall by sending hives to California, but Pat had not heard the results. It seems in that case the bees would not be able to catch up with a such late start on producing comb and brood. She has not seen Mason (orchard) bees survive here either; however, there are 22 bee bumblebee and other species in this area. Here's a super tip from Pat: put honey water out in a bowl during the early spring and yellow jacket queens will be attracted to it and drown, which will eliminate many of their nests. Doesn't work later with yellowjacket worker bees though; traps with spoiled meat type food works for them. We wonder if it will attract wasp queens...will try next March/April at home.

So this morning, I replaced entrance plugs except for original two at right on front of hive and replaced the sticky board and shimmed it so tight against bottom of hive; left ¼” wire mesh in place—may decide to remove that depending upon number of dead bees remaining inside hive on the “new floor”—will check when I return from Colorado or ask Jody to check in a week.

Looked into hive and found new comb drawn on B9.5 which is not cross combed onto B10. B10 is once again cross combed with B11 and B12 had new comb that is straight; inserted another bar between 11 and 12 so now we have an empty 11.5.  So they have drawn quite a lot of comb since I left a week ago…pictures tomorrow when Jody comes and we go after those queen cells on B4...and take pictures!