Feb 17, 2014 Update on feeding...

I like what I found re feeding at http://www.honeybeesuite.com/ and plan to use sugar cakes (cubes) for now as I will be aways for several weeks. Will place them on the floor of the hive when this torrential rain lets up.

Winter feeding of honey bees

Ideally, honey bees should not have to be fed in the winter. But sometimes nature conspires against us, and our colonies are plunged into winter with insufficient stores of honey. How much honey they need depends on the local climate and weather conditions, the size of the winter cluster, and the variety of bee.

Even with plenty of honey in the hive, bees sometimes starve because they can’t get to it. I’ve seen clusters starve with full frames of honey on both sides of them. I have also seen them survive on nothing more than sugar cakes for many months—and flourish the following spring.

Many colonies make it through a long, hard winter only to die in the early spring. If a hive makes it past the coldest part of the winter, it is easy to relax and not worry about the early spring—after all they made it through the worse part. But the fact is, they often use up their stores during the coldest months and starve after the weather starts to warm but before the nectar starts to flow. It is important to be vigilant about feeding during that “in-between” season.

What not to feed:

• Never feed bees honey that comes from an unknown source. Honey can contain the spores of diseases such as American Foul Brood.

• Never feed bees sugar with additives. Brown sugar contains molasses. Powdered sugar often contains cornstarch. Commercial fondant may contain flavorings and/or colorings. Any of these “extras” could cause honey bee dysentery.

• Although many commercial beekeepers use high-fructose corn syrup, be aware that it may containhydroxymethylfurfural (HMF)—especially if it is old or has gotten warm. HMF is poisonous to bees.

The best feed:

• If you don’t have extra honey from your own apiary to feed the bees, the next best thing is sugar syrup made from white table sugar.[1] The syrup used in fall and winter should be in the proportion of two parts sugar to one part water by either weight or volume.

• If the temperatures in your area are going to be below 50°F (10°C), it is best to use fondant, sugar cakes (see candy boards), or granulated sugar rather than syrup.

• Because table sugar lacks the micronutrients found in honey, you can add a feeding stimulant withessential oils such as Honey-B-Healthy or Pro Health to give them some added nourishment.

How to feed:

• If your temperatures are warm (above 50°F) you can use liquid feed and one of the internal feedersso your bees don’t have to go outside to eat. Also, you may want to add a mold inhibitor.

• If your temperatures are going to be cold, you can use a candy board, a mountain camp rim, or an empty shallow super filled with sugar cakes.

When to feed:

• If a hive feels light in the fall, you should start feeding liquid sugar syrup (2 parts sugar to one part water) as soon as possible. When the temperature starts dipping below 50°F, switch to one of the cold-weather methods.

• It doesn’t hurt to feed sugar proactively. I sometimes give sugar cakes as soon as the weather gets cold. In this way, they eat both honey and sugar simultaneously throughout the winter, and the honey supply lasts longer. I think this is better than having them eat only honey, and then only sugar because honey contains essential nutrients.

• In any case, check the hives on the occasional dry and sunny day. Move frames of honey closer to the cluster, if possible, or add feed if necessary. Do not be lulled into thinking that they have “made it” just because the temperatures are warming in the spring.

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[1] Whether the sugar comes from cane or beets really doesn’t matter unless you are opposed to supporting genetically modified organisms. Sugar beets may be modified to be “Round-Up Ready.”

Feb 16, 2014 Dowsing done and hive relocated

Dowsing works!! Son Jon brought two welding rods to be used for the dowsing of the ley lines (magnetic lines of the earth). Worked amazingly well; the line was over about 2 feet from the hive. Not easy to see but wires are straight in top photo and crossed in next photo. So, space was prepared, base was set at level, and hive moved to the ley line on a north/south orientation with the entrance to the south. Although the entrance now faces the house wall, it is far enough way to allow for bees' egress and ingress.

The hive seems a bit light in weight and honey stores might be low, so will get the feeder setup going again. Although the bees were bringing in pollen a few days ago, meaning there is brood in the hive, I believe there is not sufficient nectar to bring home to keep the hive from starving. Also, son Jon has a camera with a probe for small spaces (see it on hive top); once we get the battery recharged, there will be pictures of the hive interior...tomorrow perhaps unless predicted heavy rains fall all day long.

February 15, 2014 Just another of those wonderful days...

At Independence home this week.  Bees were flying Wednesday during a lull in winter weather--50's and a bit of sunshine with no wind. They were returning with pollen! Many also making orientation flights so I opened the entrance by removing the block for the day; replaced it the next day when winter weather returned. Looked around to see where pollen was to be found: candytuft opening, snowdrops, forsythia, heather also. so, early spring is here and those bees know what they are supposed to do!

Time to arrange for a bee package for the Bend hive and to get the welding rods to make dowsing rods so I can resituate the Indep hive and get the Bend hive placed properly before the new inhabitants arrive in early May. See notes from Jan meeting of Central Oregon Bee group. Also, was able to visit Richard, the Prineville hive builder, and see the wonderful gardens he and his wife have created as well as see their bee hives and hear about their work and how he manages the hives.

Jan 9, 2014 Central Oregon Beekeepers Meeting notes

I’m back!  Attended the Central Oregon Beekeeping Association meeting last night and am still amazed at how much new information I learned…wow!! More jazzed than I have been in a long time about bee guardianship and ready to add another type of hive to the apiary—well, that would be my one Warré hive in Independence and empty Warré hive here in Bend, which will be filled later this spring. People/members were so congenial and offers of help readily offered…nice.

Notes from Central Oregon Beekeeping Association (http://www.cobeekeeping.org/)

Jan 9, 2014 meeting

Upcoming dates:

March 1  Beginning Bee School $25/family

April 12 Advanced Bee Class (free for members)

March 15 4-H Living on a Few Acres, Deschutes Co

Presentation by Naomi on Long Hives.

“Read not to contradict nor to believe, but to weigh and consider.”  Francis Bacon

(Naomi’s philosophy—read below with that in mind for mine as well)

Naomi, with help of Larry, husband, and Richard, friend, has developed a hive that incorporates the best of the topbar, Warré, and Langstroth hives, in my opinion. She demonstrated the hive and how one uses it from a sitting position, shared many insights from her research, and responded to questions from the audience. Below are points garnered from Naomi and others at the meeting, in no particular order or importance.

Naomi uses Langstroth deeps, with no foundation, which allows bees to draw comb to their specifications and still allows one to rest the frame on the edge of the hive, particularly important when comb is filled and heavier. Allows for easily sharing, installing nucs, etc. The screened packages can be laid inside the hive and bees move at their own pace into the frame space…nice.

Naomi has a symbol by the entrance to prevent bees ‘drifting’ which can easily happen if hives are close together. Color is nice for beekeeper but doesn’t mean much to bees. The best spacing between hives is 95’, breaking front to back rather than side to side.

Bees have a ‘dance floor’ usually on the first frame—do NOT move the first frame ever! Otherwise bees have to search through combs to find it. Sometimes second comb outside also serves as dance floor space. (LB note: first comb in my top bar hives held pollen and honey, no brood.)

Long hive has 24 frames with 12 frames of brood, from frame 2 through 15, the front frames; honey stores are at the back.

Place queen cage between frames 2 and 3 not at front of hive on frame 1.  Third day, as bees building brood comb move last frame out and add empty frames before it. Brood comb is always straight and this will help keep additional combs straight. If comb starts to bulge, use dental floss to disconnect and push comb back in place; bees will reattach it. Always have 2 empty frames at end/back. Drone comb is always at the outer edge of brood area; queen goes as far as first honey frame. (LB note: I’ve heard she might cruise the whole hive occasionally.)

Consider adding a board midway in the frame for bees to use as a ladder rather than having to climb the edges—this would be Langstroth frames with no foundation.

One bee makes 1/12 teaspoon of honey during its lifetime!! I felt much gratitude as I spread honey on my morning toast today.

Regarding feeding of whatever, sugar heated above 180° is toxic to bees and to humans as well.

Entrances: Scientists research shows bees prefer 2.5 square inches for an entrance. Naomi has hers 3/8” high and about 4” wide, a little less than the 2.5; however, it works and can easily be blocked during yellow jacket season or robbing. No lightening (landing) board is needed; bees land at 60° horizontal so if you have landing board, make it this angle.

3/8” width is ideal for bees for almost every spacing. Less than 3/8” frames—more propolyzing; more than 3/8” more burr comb.

Line length of bars/frames exactly magnetic north and south; bees prefer it. Also, place hives on earth grid lines; identify them by dowsing. Several people spoke of this and shared interesting anecdotes: noisy hive calmed when moved to grid line; swarming hive stayed put when moved. Bees work at 250 hertz according to Richard. (and, an aside by another member—dogs point nose north when defecating…something to notice…)

Place opening on south side perpendicular to N/S frame placement.

Find magnetic grid through dowsing; welding rods 15” top, 12” sides; hold side without thumbs so no pressure and a little offset to allow for crossing.

Strong magnetic lines between large trees; look around at Junipers, see line of larger trees.

Richard XXX builds the Long Hive using exterior plywood, metal covered roof, exterior grade screws, for $375 plus $1.20 for each frame. No plans available and I’ll plan to purchase one to use and show Ken in Independence, my hive builder!

May 2013 update

May 11...checked Warre hive minimally by lifting three boxes up several inches (thanks, Lee and Jon) to snap a picture to see what's happening inside.  There is no comb built on the bars of the lowest box and through the bars in the photo, one can see that bars visible in the box above have no comb. Although I can hear the steady buzz of bees in the top box and the middle box and the three boxes have been glued together by the bees with propolis, my conclusion is that this is a small hive that will have sufficient space for this summer...and perhaps beyond. The bees seem healthy, no mites or dead bees observed on the floor.  Seems to be a good population flying out on warm days, returning with pollen and nectar. So, I plan to let them be bees, doing what they know best. At some point they will requeen naturally, and this will be as wild a hive as a backyard can have, which was the goal in the beginning. The honey is a bonus, although I did get sidetracked for awhile and focused too much on that. However, I can buy very good local honey fairly inexpensively and that suits fine.

Empty bars in lowest Warre box

Spring 2013 has arrived!

March 19, 2013 summary of the past few months...

All has been calm in the Warre hive since the October robbing. I've elected to not install a new package of bees in the top bar hive this year and am thinking of selling it. I like the idea of a TBH but have not had the success I envisioned; however, one more year in Bend may make a difference. Once I have a suitable place for a hive, I probably will set it up and find a swarm to inhabit it. A side note: have been asked to give a presentation on bees at granddaughter's school in Bend and plan to use the empty hive to show children how it works--what an excellent way to introduce little people to the wonders of bees!

It was a mild winter here in the Independence area of the Willamette Valley in Oregon. I've been living between here and Bend, OR this winter so observed the hive every few weeks rather than daily as previously done. A few weeks ago, bees were flying and returning with bright yellow, pale yellow, and golden pollen. Yesterday, March 18, bees were still bringing back pollen and others were making orientation flights, an indication that brood had hatched, spent their hive days inside, and were now about to venture out on foraging missions.

The Warre hive entrance was blocked for the winter, leaving a oneing-bee space entrance. The block had been pushed out by early March, so I assume the bees no longer wanted it now that the warmer days have arrived. However, a week of cool, rainy days is forecast so I put the block back with 1" opening and added two rocks to hold it in place--will monitor to see if they move it again or need it opened further.

Have not looked into the hive, which has three boxes. Did lift the middle box and found it was not propolized to the lowest box, which indicates to me that they are not making comb in it yet. Will check for comb building next month or later. Plan to remove top box with honey stores sometime in June, if there is brood comb in second box...all a learning experience since this is a modified Warre, longer than the normally 12' square  hive.

Met with the Central Oregon Beekeepers, a very nice group, and heard from Petra that minerals seem to help her bees and she is willing to give me some to try. It sounds reasonable to offer it and let the bees take it or not.

Looking forward to another bee season!

A repeat of the bee's life cycle:

List of worker bee’s life/duties (from Beekeeping, A Seasonal Guide by Ron Brown)

0-4 days                      cell cleaning and incubation

3-12 days                    feed larvae

About 4^th day              power of stinging fully developed

Between 6^th and 10^th day        orientation or nursery flight, usually around midday

6-15 days                    wax making and comb building

8-16 days                    reception and storage of nectar; packing pollen in cells

14-18 days                  entrance guard, debris clearance and funeral bearer duties

19^th day                       begins to pay attention to bee dances

18-30/35 days             foraging for nectar and pollen

25-30/35 days             collecting propolis

Robbing at the hives...

Today is Sunday...7:00 a.m.
On Friday when we returned from vacation about 2 p.m., the bees seemed as usual, foraging and returning with pollen and nectar. As the day warmed further, activity picked up immensely; I thought how nice the hives were so strong, gathering the last fall nutrients...UNTIL there were more bees than ever before and some pushing and shoving near the entrances of both top bar hive and the Warre hive, and I thought robbing is going on before my very eyes!

I blocked half the entrance of the Warre hive but didn't know what to do for the TBH entrances. (Later, decided I should have plugged those entrances immediately.) Within 30 minutes, the Warre settled down to normal activity while the TBH was swarmed with bees at the entrance. So, I donned my bee outfit and set out with spray bottle of water and hive tools to look into the hive itself, expecting to be mobbed by bees. Definitely robbing--no bees bothered by my being close or even opening the hive...in the past, guard bees were right on it so I knew they were gone. Inside the hive, bees were stacked on top of one another trying to get to the honey cells, cappings were scattered on the hive floor as were dead bees, and no sign of a queen. All this happened within an hour...wow, how quickly the news spread in the bee communities. The Warre hive was able to keep the robbers out.

Decided to tear apart the hive, literally, removing all the bars to check each comb. No brood anywhere and actually not much evidence of honey storage and a couple strange looking white trails on the brood comb...this was a weak hive, which I had suspected earlier in the summer. I'd been away so much that I wasn't tracking the TBH activity carefully and really had decided to let the bees be this year. There were 11 combs drawn: two partially completed combs at the end of the hive, one with a 4" half-moon shape of capped honey; four fully drawn combs about half filled with honey cells, three of which also had been partially used for brood; and five brood combs at the beginning of the hive with the usual pattern of honey and pollen. This is much less than last year when we had 14 combs with seven filled with honey stores. This year's TBH would not have survived the winter without feeding.

After dark when the robbers had gone, I plugged the two entrances knowing the few hive bees left would survive a few days on the honey still remaining. Visitors returned all day Saturday trying to gain access to the hive. Concerned about their moving on to the Warre which sits only 6' away, during the early afternoon I placed a water spray on the hive as discouragement. WRONG thing to do...the bees moved to the Warre hive. I sprayed them off the Warre entrance a couple of times, per instructions found on internet, and finally decided about 3pm to block the entrance entirely. After dark about one-third of the bees remained near the hive entrance--those who belonged in the hive. I unplugged the entrance so they could enter during the night.

Back to a search on how to prevent robbers getting into the hive and found a good screen technique on www.Beesource.com that I felt would be the best for this hive. The screen blocker was installed over the Warre entrance early this morning before dawn so hive foragers would leave the new way and be able to find their way back into the hive upon their return. According to the article, robber bees try to go straight into the entrance rather than find their way behind the screen and travel down into the hive entrance. It's all in place...now the waiting begins.  Also, will check the TBH to see how the bees are faring--I'm thinking there will have been a battle inside and not anticipating good news.

Three hours later, here's what it looks like...

Five hours later, front is totally covered, there is fighting on the ground and at the edges of the screen...not working well at all. Called Ernie, a local bee guy in the neighborhood, who said to restrict entrance to a one bee opening, so I mashed the screen under the board above it, sealing off most of the area. I think there are about four spots at each corner where one bee could pass. Now it's wait and see once again.

While asking about what to do, I was told that three others in the area had harvested their honey during the past few days which sets off a "false honey flow" because some honey inadvertently gets spilled around the hives. It seems all the neighborhood bees are out scouting for honey, smelled our hives, and came to rob. I am not happy about the fact that they didn't let me know that they were harvesting and to restrict the hive entrances immediately. They have the normal Langstroth hives and harvest in the fall; my beekeeping model is to harvest in the spring after bees have taken what they need from the honey stores.

Just now had a visit from Ernie, the local bee expert who retired from beekeeping in California several years ago. He looked at the TBH, said it had been queenless for a long time--a month probably--which is why it was robbed to begin with. Also, he said I should be checking every two weeks to insure there's a queen and all is well in the hive; we had decided to leave bees alone this year...maybe not a good idea, at least in this case. Ernie indicated the white trails on the comb was wax moths, resulting from a weakened hive because no queen in residence...got it!

Now the plan is to remove the Warre screen setup after dark when the visitors are gone and restrict the entrance to one bee opening; I'll do that tonight. After dark, I will also remove the roof of the TBH to let trapped bees out and then do what with the remains...not sure yet.

So goes another learning opportunity--not sure I want any more frankly. Probably will not restart the TBH next year.