Bee notes beginning March 2011

GrandmaB's Backyard Bee Guardianship

How it all started…

March, 2011 Independence, Oregon, located in the heart of the Willamette Valley, is an ideal place for home gardens. During the summer of 2010 the plants in our garden bloomed well, but there was not the usual abundance of produce. There seemed to be few bees out and about to pollinate; we were well aware of the decline of the bee population. On a drive to the Portland airport for a trip to Florida during the following March, I read an article about Warre hives and backyard bee guardians. Immediately thought this would solve our pollination problem and tossed the article in the back seat for later. Read the article more thoroughly when we returned, looked around for a Warre hive, found one locally, and set off to buy it. While talking with the hive builder, I learned about top bar hives, which he also builds, and decided that was the way to go. Hive purchased, now for bees.  Not so easy, the bee supplier in Portland told me one has to order bees months in advance and theirs were to be delivered in a week, so wait until next year. Not impatient me; I found a supplier in Eugene who had one day left for ordering with delivery in a week. Based on very little research, I ordered Italian bees on that last day and got ready to become a bona fide bee guardian. I was about to find out how little I knew about bees and how much information is on the internet; I owe much to the many bee sites and “beeks” who willingly share their experiences.

Top Bar Hive (TBH) was built by Ken, a local carpenter whom I had met several years earlier through bird house purchases. Besides being functional, it is a lovely piece in the yard and will work well for the bees. Details:  32”x17” red cedar with 1” thick sides; inside measurement is 20”. 19 top bars each 1 3/8” wide and 2 followers 1 3/8” wide and 1 spacer ¾” wide. It has wire mesh at the bottom with a sticky board below. We added a white poly covering on the roof for waterproofing. Hive placed and leveled on concrete blocks in a sheltered area of the backyard facing east to be in the early morning sunshine. One follower (a solid moveable end board) was placed on the far right side next to the wall and the other follower was placed at the center of the hive 9 bars to the left. Remaining10 bars and spacer were placed to the left of center follower for later use. Details of Ken's TBH: http://yardbuilder101.wordpress.com/2011/05/08/top-bar-bee-hives-built-for-the-climate-of-the-willamette-valley/

April 15, 2011

A friend and I picked up Italian bees with a marked queen at GloryBee in Eugene, Oregon during the morning. 3# package holds approximately 10,500 bees and one queen. Steady rain all day; mid 50°s. We did not know what to expect—it was a big deal, complete with registration tent, lecture about the initial care of the hive, demonstrations on how to hive the package of bees, and lots of people milling around buzzing with excitement. Attended the brief lecture, recognizing that things would be slightly different because we have a top bar hive, not a Langstroth—we can adapt. Found ourselves a bit nervous during the hiving demonstration with bees flying all around the crowd, landing on us, buzzing in our ears. It was not easy to focus on the work happening up front while wondering if this is really for me—but I have bought a hive and paid for the bees…I am committed.

Notes from lecture and demonstration:

Bees from California that had been packaged 4 days as a new colony with new queen and trucked to Eugene. Get into hive as soon as possible so they keep warm (internal hive temp is 93.5°) and so they can make their first orientation flight and begin work. Do not use outside feeder during spring as it is too cold for bees to come out and they can starve. Make syrup by filling jar ¾ full of white granulated sugar and adding hot, hot tap water stirring to dissolve sugar; place warm syrup in hive to help warm the space for them. Feed 30-45 days until bees no longer use syrup. An aside: honey is 60% sugar, 40% water.

To hive, spray outside of screened package box with sugar water. Remove top cap and take out syrup can. Spray inside to keep them from flying and remove queen cage; place something over hole to keep bees inside. Have candy (gummy bear from GB) in mouth to soften; remove cork in queen’s cage and cover hole with finger; put candy in hole. Hang cage between middle bars. Pound box or rap sharply on ground to loosen bees and pour them into the hive. Bees form a sphere around the queen. Do not disturb for 3 days.

On 4^th day, check to see that queen is out of cage and look for eggs in first 3 frames close to queen; remove cage. Okay not to find queen but confirm eggs being laid (once eggs laid, colony is okay). If no eggs, check again at 9 days; if no eggs, call GloryBee for another queen and arrange pickup next day. Smoke gently at entrance opening and when opening top (LB note: smoke not needed for top bar hives as only a small space is opened.)

            During the first year, goal is to establish colony, not harvest honey.

And here’s what happened…Hived bees with husband Lee’s help about 4:30 p.m. during a light drizzle, although I had a quick gulp when I thought Lee was absent-mindedly eating the candy, but he assured me not so. All went according to plan per demo by GloryBee with slight variations for a top bar hive.

We placed the queen cage between bars 3&4 from the right and taped metal strip on the cage to a top bar so it was fixed in place. Found it easy to drop bees into hive through the left side opening and put remaining bars in place. Next time, suggest placing the two bars with queen between to the far right side and then moving those two bars to the left two spaces and placing bars 1&2 in place.

Maybe 100 bees flying around when package transferred to hive; within 10 minutes most had entered hive or were close to hive. Since about 100 bees didn’t come out of the package, left it with opening close to hive entrance; will check to see if bees transferred themselves (3 hrs later, a small handful remain in the package).

The GloryBee demonstration stressed the need to keep hive warm and to use an inside feeder during this cold spring. We were unable to install inside feeder (purchased unit is for Langstroth hives and too large) and top feeder not an option. Decided smaller size of TopBar hive compared to Langstroth hives would compensate for heat needs and syrup could go outside entrance. We placed a platform close to the hive entrance and put an 8” cake pan of syrup (4 cups—3c sugar and 1c hot water) with wood floats and the syrup can (about ½ full) from the bee package on blocks on the platform. Bees immediately went to syrup can.

The hive and platform were covered by white plastic to shield from the rain; will remove when weather clears…probably tomorrow.  3 hour check: several bees flying outside plastic cover; maybe 50 bees outside hive under cover; not sure if bees are eating syrup in cake pan yet although a few bees on floats or sides of cake pan.

               

April 16, 2011

6:30 a removed plastic rain shield; little activity; about a dozen bees still in shipping package; quiet buzzing in hive.

11:00a  58°; no rain yet today; low overcast. Lots of bee movement outside of hive; bees using both syrup feeders.

4:00p Rain and cool. Put rain shield back—we need to come up with a better “porch roof” than the white plastic. Found about 30 bees drowned in cake pan syrup container so changed to a quart jar (3/5 full) with tiny holes in lid propped on wood (similar to can from package). No bees flying. Concerned about their getting food. Lee’s wondering if I’ll be up every 2 hours tonight checking on them.

April 17

6:30a no rain so removed rain shield; no bees flying...my concern still is are they feeding?

9:00a no bees flying…too cold?

11:30 a 55°  lots of bees out, covering syrup that dripped from jar…no worrying now!

Jody, another TBH bee guardian who lives about 3 miles away, called to introduce herself and we talked about our new bees. She had hived her bees from Ruhl’s in Portland on April 10 and opened the hive the next day to release the queen and saw honey comb being built already. I will open hive tomorrow, 3^rd day, to check that queen has moved out of cage.

Because of the hurried entrance into beekeeping, I have questions:

Are the packaged queens fertile or do they need to fly out to mate?

Answer, yes they are according to web site http://peacebeefarm.blogspot.com/2009/05/queen-bee-makes-mating-flight.html by Richard Underhill. The queen you receive in a package is already mated. A package of bees should contain a mated, egg-laying queen in a cage. A queen cell is placed in a queen mating nucleus hive by the queen producer. After it emerges in this small hive, it makes one or more mating flights and mates with a number of drones. It returns to the mating nucleus hive and after about two weeks from the time of the queen’s emerging, it starts laying eggs. After the queen is laying eggs, the producer catches her and places her in a cage. The cage is placed in a screened shipping box with about three pounds of bees shaken off the frames of various hives. The mated queen is held in the cage for a period of time to allow the bees to detect the pheromones she secretes. By the time the bees have chewed through the candy plug in the queen cage to release the queen, the bees will be organized as a social colony around her pheromones.

At what temperature do bees fly (actually…is there something wrong with bees in this hive)?

Here’s an answer from Wikipedia: Below 7-10°C (45-50°F), bees become immobile due to the cold and above 38°C (100°F) bee activity slows due to heat. Honey bees can tolerate temperatures up to 50°C (122°F) for short periods. We just need some sun and 50°+ days!

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Here's the entire Wikipedia section about thermal regulation:

The honey bee needs an internal body temperature of 35°C to fly, which is also the temperature within the cluster. The brood nest needs the same temperature over a long period to develop the brood, and it is the optimal temperature for the creation of wax.

The temperature on the periphery of the cluster varies with the outside air temperature. In the winter cluster, the inside temperature is as low as

20-22 °C (69-71°F).

Honey bees are able to forage over a 30°C range of air temperature largely because they have behavioral and physiological mechanisms for regulating the temperature of their flight muscles. From very low to very high air temperatures, the successive mechanisms are shivering before flight and stopping flight for additional shivering, passive body temperature in a comfort range that is a function of work effort, and finally active heat dissipation by evaporative cooling from regurgitated honey sac contents. The body temperatures maintained differ depending on expected foraging rewards and on caste. [3] The optimal air temperature for foraging is 22-25°C.

During flight, the rather large flight muscles create heat, which must dissipate. The honey bee uses a form of evaporative cooling to release heat through its mouth. Under hot conditions, heat from the thorax is dissipated through the head. The bee regurgitates a droplet of hot internal fluid—a "honeycrop droplet"–which immediately cools the head temperature by 10 °C.[4]

Below 7-10 °C, bees become immobile due to the cold and above 38 °C bee activity slows due to heat. Honey bees can tolerate temperatures up to 50 °C for short periods.

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11:30a 50° and bees are out, some on syrup…feeling better about how they are doing now that I know about their temperature needs.

Plant list from Jody, which she found online at http://thehealingpath.com/OrganicBeekeeping/

7p 54° Bees in for the night; some clustered on top of the hive, not moving, and a few dead bees scattered on syrup platform.

April 18, 2011 Nice day, slight breeze, 58°, and bees are out and about. Read today about bees needing pollen for protein for the larvae, which I have not supplied. Called GloryBee and heard that if bees are out flying they will bring pollen back—the bees know what they need and I’m just beginning to learn!  Tomorrow—checking the queen’s cage and comb and eggs.

April 19, 2011 Another nice day—bees out mid-morning. Opened the hive, complete with veil and vinyl gloves, to check for queen at 11:30a—she’s out of her cage. Pulled out bars on left side of follower and moved follower and 5 bars to the left until I found bees working; they were making comb on bars 3&4 between which queen cage was hung. Did not lift bars that had a small amount of comb: comb about 3” wide and 3.5” long—white. Didn’t search extensively for the queen—she’s there doing what she supposed to do or not…time will tell. (Really didn’t need to have her marked.) Bees calm even though I forgot the spray bottle. They came peeking out between the bars but moved back down when I wiggled the bars to close. Quite easy actually! Syrup jar ¼ full; it leaks onto platform and bees are feeding from that, too, but not sure how much has not been used; will refill tomorrow.

1:30p While watching for about ½ min, I saw 2 bees bringing pollen back to the hive—they are finding protein so now I know they will survive and thrive in this new hive.

6p Oh, the ants have arrived; will need a new scheme for feeding

April 20 I think the bees and I have settled in and down. Changed to syrup (2 c) in a quart size Ziploc bag, with five 1/8” slits, lying in a metal pie pan atop an empty tuna can placed in another pie pan filled with water. Has foiled the ants and bees are feeding from the tiny holes.
   Found during research that bars should be 1/8” wider for honey comb than for brood comb. Want to talk with Ken about cutting additional spacers that size to be placed between bars that are in the honey area.

April 22 Found a good website—nice work/descriptions/videos by Christie at http://www.goldstarhoneybees.com/ . Learned that I can use a long flexible knife instead of hive tool to cut propolis and comb from side, always cutting from bottom to top to avoid breaking off the comb.

Two cups 1:1 syrup added to Ziploc bag. First sting today..ouch! On the ankle between shoe and sock; now I know, always wear pants long enough to cover the collar of my shoes.

Tomorrow back into the hive to check brood, add top bars to honey side and spacers—nice weather and 67° predicted.

April 23, 2011

12p  69° Opened hive; saw bees on bar 6 with comb on bars 1-5. Lee took pictures and we can see eggs and larva in the cells!!! Yeah, it’s happening! I did not see any capped cells; saw nectar in top rows and some pollen cells; did not see queen but did see a ball of bees on the right side of bar 1 away from the comb being built—expect she was in there. Used a twig to herd bees off the comb as I held the bar a few inches above the hive and slid it along the opening as I moved bars back into place. Probably will order the “herding tool” I saw at www.BackyardHive.com of Boulder, Colorado.

Added 3 bars, 9-11, to the hive cavity and four 1/8” spacers from Ken placed after bars 8|90|10|11. Checked level of hive and added a couple of shims. Comb is drawn straight to the earth and will be slanted if hive not level; saw some interesting pictures of that on the internet.

Lee noted that bees were very agitated when I stood in front of their two entrances on the front (east side) and immediately calmed when I moved away. So now I’ll move around the hive at the “back” or west side.

Used syrup water to spray them down—not such a good idea as it will attract ants to the top of the hive under the roof, where there were a few when roof was removed before work began. Washed the top of the hive with plain water. USE PLAIN WATER IN SPRAY BOTTLE.

April 24, 2011 Need to figure another way to feed—syrup leaking from slits in bag and too many bees getting caught on the syrup. Trying 20oz water bottle with pin holes around side; bottle placed in same pie plan set up. Two cups syrup in bottle; left almost empty bag of syrup lying in pan, too. Ordered BeeHerder and TBH tool from www.BackYardHive.com.

April 27, 2011 Bottle feeding working; adding 1 cup syrup today; should have placed pin holes lower on bottle—1/2” from bottom perhaps. Added a block of wood on top of tuna can in the pan of water…all to foil the ants, which must be delighted with this new food source.

May 1, 2011  Nice sunny day, high 70s°. Have been adding 1 cup syrup per day to feeder. Opened hive with Jody. Bees have small comb on bar 8; took pictures; added one bar w/spacer, 12 bars now. No ants in hive; quite a few on top of bars under roof. Bees have sealed the bars with comb at the top. Probably will check hive one more time in a week if nice weather to see progress and maybe place follower to the far left. Visited Jody’s hive; her bees seem more aggressive than ours. She is also using a lot more syrup than we are. Jody thinks she’s feeding all the neighbor bees, too. (That might account for her bees being more agitated as we later learned that bees will be more protective if there are bees from other hives around…robbing apparently an issue for bees.)

May 7, 2011 No notes for six days but I’m out there observing more than a few times a day—it is so interesting to watch bees’ behavior. They have been flying more and using less syrup during last few nice days. Removed sticky board to check for mites…not sure if there. Will view photos and consult with others. Lots of debris and ants crawling on the board. Cleaned board and replaced.  Research with Boulder group (http://www.backyardhive.com/): don’t worry about mites…TBH seldom have them, wait for deformed bees to worry. That’s a good informational site.

May 10, 2011 Continuing to provide syrup, 2:1 ratio now; 1 c every other day. Opened hive today. Bees were coming up through the wire mesh on the non-hive side of the follower when I removed the first unused bars; seemed to be moving down from the comb section and along the sticky board and then up. I think they need more entrances. Bees active and drawing more comb, working on bar 8.  Found mildew on the follower and a slight amount on the sides of the hive…see photo. Turned follower around so mildew away from comb and opened 2 more entrances at the middle section on the back; research shows not much info out there about mold/mildew other than more ventilation needed. Did not look at bars on which comb has been drawn and did not add more bars, keeping them at 12. Ken cut 1/8” spacer bars, which I placed between bars starting with 8 and 9.

             

May 12, 2011 After research re mildew, back to 1:1 syrup mixture—too much moisture in hive. Will check mildew again this weekend and wipe with apple cider vinegar if necessary.

May 15, 2011 Bees are not using as much syrup the past two days; must be finding enough nectar. Took a peek inside; bar 8 comb about ½ complete; no start on bar 9; bar 7 looks to be almost complete. No moisture on walls and mildew seems to be almost gone (research shows bees will clean it away) so no need to wipe with vinegar.  About 20 dead bees between wire screens at bottom outside the hive area (left side of follower)—need to talk with Ken about that still. Left same number of bars (12) and spacers in place.

May 17, 2011 Many, many bees flying around outside hive in about a 6’x6’ space; research shows that happens when new (3 wk old) bees are making their “orientation flights” although I wonder since this hive is only 4 ½ weeks old. Comb took a few days to be drawn and then eggs laid and would have hatched about a week ago …maybe they go earlier when hive is being established and foragers are needed?

May 18, 2011  Ken, the hive builder, came to visit after a call from me about the dead bees between the screens; about 20 bees still there. We agreed that I should cut a 2”x4” hole in the bottom screen to allow the housekeeping bees to move dead bees out the bottom. Ken took pictures and has an idea how to change the bottom screen setup to accommodate the need to remove dead bees. I cut a 2”x1” hole in the wire without disturbing bees; will check later today or tomorrow to see if they’ve moved dead bees out of that space. Ken gave me two extra top bars to put in place of bars removed to place in open spaces when removing bars with comb and better retain environment of the hive…good idea I think. Little use of syrup during past few days; will fill once more tomorrow morning anticipating that will be the last time—we are at 4 ½ weeks and GloryBee said to keep syrup at least 4-6 weeks.  Bees are bringing back large bags of pollen--look at the tan spots on the back legs on two of them in the picture below. Looking through the middle entrances on the back, it appears they are still on bar 8 but cannot see top of bar 9 from entrances so they may be started on it.

May 22, 2011 We are at five weeks now. Although I was gone four days, all is fine…they don’t need me to check everyday I guess! Left full bottle of 1:1 syrup on the 19^th and about ½ cup used during those four days—expect this will be the final feeding unless rainy weather continues to keep them close to the hive. Another bar added, up to #13, as bees are beginning to work on bar 10. Dead bees have not been removed from space between wire mesh even with the open hole, nor are there any bodies on the sticky board.

May 24, 20011 Cut wire on three sides and bent it forward toward the entrance side. And I am leaving the overwintered turnips, kale, and other garden plants to flower for the bees who mass on them during sunny periods.

May 26, 2011 Removed syrup feeder; nice not to have all that clutter in front of the hive. Days are warmer but still too much rain coming down. However, bees are all over the raspberries located close to the hive. I’m looking for summer and fall flowering plants that can be planted in our yard; back to the list supplied by Jody in April.

May 30, 2011 No dead bees on sticky board; bottom layer of wire being removed seems a good thing. Found several cell caps laying on the sticky board—babies are chewing their way out of the cells and now we have new bees?! Checked inside to see that bees are working on bar 10; 13 bars in hive area and no more bars added. They are not using two entrances on back side and two at side on front of hive seem adequate for their traffic right now.

June 2, 2011 Ken has designed a bar cradle that he want me to try; used when removing bars with comb for inspection or harvesting. Will maybe open hive this weekend when warmer weather is predicted. This has been a typical LaNina spring—cold and wet, We are not supposed to be opening the hive—I think it’s like a giant lifting our house roof to see what we’re doing in here—but it is hard to resist! I did check the sticky board and found very little debris and one ant. Learned that bees will keep their hive spotless and now that the lower screen is gone, they can clean the sticky board? It is amazing to see the bees become so active as soon as the rain stops. They are generally tucked in for the night about 7p.m.