Entire hive check and crashing comb...

77°, beautiful day to open the hive with Jody and explore all the bars from end to beginning.

Sixteen bars in place; bees were resting on Bars 14 & 13 but not drawing comb; small comb about 3” long drawn at the center of Bar 12. And then I found the dreaded cross combing  between Bar 11 and Bar 10--not good. When I moved 11 away from 10, the new fragile comb tore apart and crashed from Bar 11 to the wire mesh floor. It had uncapped honey cells, but no brood fortunately. Comb on Bar 10 was placed on that bar and on both sides using the two ¼” spacers…not supposed to be like that. See top view of Bar 10 below where comb had been attached to that on Bar 11. Bar 10 had both honey and brood cells. About 4 hours later after some online research, returned and removed broken comb and set it outside the hive for bees to clean; if left inside they would attach it to whatever it is touching, which they had begun to do on the side of the hive. Later...and even outside the hive, they attached it to the outside wall where it was touching...lesson learned.

     

Bar 9 had brood comb with worker cells at the center and drone cells on the sides. Bar 8 had a few unopened drone cells at the edges and empty worker cells at the middle…see photo.

And moving on…to Bar 4 where we saw queen cells, somewhat smaller than what we expected they would be—are they normal size, should they be there now,  is the hive fixing to swarm? Something to research when I return from Alaska...  Here’s a picture of those larger cells at the lower edge of comb.

(Info found in Aug on OSU site)

Since there is only a single female reproductive in a bee colony, there is a special procedure to replace her when it becomes necessary to do so. Replacement of a queen by another queen is a process termed supersedure. Replacement of the queen and production of another colony is another behavior which is called swarming. A third means of replacing a queen, emergency queen rearing, is necessary if the queen dies suddenly, is removed by a beekeeper, or is somehow injured or lost from her colony.
Queen failure may lead to reduced egg laying but workers more readily respond to reduced pheromone production. Each worker bee needs to receive a certain level of queen substance daily. This pheromone is distributed through food transmission among workers. If a queen is taken away, the level of this pheromone drops rapidly, though it is persistent. In the case of a failing queen, the queen produces insufficient amounts of queen substance, and therefore is fed back less of the pheromone by the bees of her retinue. This feedback system of queen pheromone distribution is vital for communication.
The first behavior change observable in queen replacement is the laying of a fertilized egg in a queen cup. Queen cups are special cup-like precursors of queen cells. They are always present in a bee colony, though their numbers are greatest in the spring months. They are built at the lower margin of beeswax comb (lower margins of frames in a beekeeper.s hive) and in spaces where the comb is damaged or left open as a walkway to the opposite side of the comb.


The queen herself places the fertilized egg in a queen cup. Worker bees can remove eggs (from queen cups or regular cells) but they are not known to transfer them. The same queen may return to the developing queen cell. (Arbitrarily, a cell occupied by an egg or developing queen is called a queen cell - it is a queen cup when empty.) By chewing on the side of the cell, the queen causes the workers to remove and kill the occupant (egg, larva or pupa) inside. It is possible to observe queen rearing repeatedly aborted in a bee colony. The original mated queen (who started the process of queen replacement by laying eggs in queen cups) may be killed before or after emergence of a virgin queen in supersedure or she may depart with a proportion of the adult workers in a swarm before a virgin queen emerges. The workers always begin to rear several new queens rather than a single one.
Emergency queen cells can be distinguished from the queen cells of swarming or supersedure because they originate from a worker cell. The horizontal orientation of the worker cells selected to be converted to queen cells is quickly changed to the vertical by enlarging the base of the cell and drawing the opening outward and downward. This usually means destroying the cell walls and removing the larvae of three to four cells adjacent to the modified cell. Capped emergency cells often seem smaller than capped queen cells started from queen cups.
Source:
The above text is taken from The Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research & Extension Consortium, Basic Bee Biology for Beekeepers; Fact Sheet,MAAREC Publication 1.4 March 2004. You can download this factsheet and others at the MAAREC website


Bar 3 had dark brood cells, which indicates they are reusing brood cells; queens prefer the new comb and we will have to remove the used brood comb at some time in the future. It could be used for honey but “they” say it will have an unpleasant taste. More research…

Continued on through Bars 2 and 1, which were brood comb, and reached the follower at the beginning side of the hive. That was normal…bees resting on it but not drawing comb.

Back to Bar 10 and what to do now.  Jody and I think the ¼” spacers may have caused the cross combing. Bar 9 was straight comb so I placed an empty bar (now to be known as Bar 9.5) between it and Bar 10, hoping they will draw straight comb on it and stay away from cross combing. Decided to leave the spacers on each side of Bar 10 and to remove all other spacers. Spacers were supposed to allow additional space next to the bars for wider comb used for honey cells which are heavy. More research…

Added bars 17 and 18 followed by the ¾” spacer and follower…all hive space now available to bees. Removed plugs in the two left entrances. Warm weather has arrived so they should be fine keeping hive at 95°. Except for comb crash and need to find more anwers to yet more questions, it was a great experience to delve into the hive innards and see that it looks just like other people's pictures! Bees were calm and easy to be with...guess those daily visits are paying off...just long sleeves and a hat to keep them out of our hair. However, anytime I tried to blow them off me or the tools, they didn't move and got super excited...which reminded me that bees react to carbon dioxide as a threat and I'm supposed to push them away gently. Did you know that touching their backs causes them to sting?

And now I’m off to Barrow, Alaska where I expect to find zero bees. When I return, back to research 1) queen cells mean what? 2) ideal width of bars and spacers 3) appropriate time for comb removal. I know I’ve read about these at different times but didn’t bookmark all the interesting info or sites…dang.