Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

Bring Out Your Dead!

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4162/3...6ba07be0_c.jpg

Bees die after about 6 weeks. And those that live like to keep a tidy hive.

Usually the worker bees will drag the bodies of their fallen brothers & sisters out of the hive and fly off a bit to drop them away from the hive. But it's been raining, and bees don't like the rain, so they've deposited the cadavers on their front porch for the time being.

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

That's what it is, Vin, but it gets bigger.
Most times the girls will feed up a number of ladies with royal jelly, turning them into queens.
When the very first queen erupts, she runs around and chews the heads off the other queens while they're still in the comb.
That also depends.
Generally she'll eat all their heads. If she leaves one, she has reason.
Mostly it's hive strength.

This is cool...
You know how you're to NEVER set a hive in the shade because "the bees get aggressive"?
And this is partly my personal feeling or theory mixed with my own stuff from studying and working with critters and sh1t my entire life.
It's hive temperature.
Bees are extremely intelligent and sensitive.
If something has happened to the hive that's caused the population to be just right for the hive, the new queen eats some serious heads.
If it's low, and the hive is going to swarm, maybe a new queen.
Depends. Large, healthy colony or sick small one?

Small and sick, Likely an extra queen. I case.
The hive will swarm to find a smaller home that they can support with their population, move in, recover and survive to grow. Or not. Depends how sick they got. You understand susceptibility, I won't blather on that.

Healthy hive. They move because it's too hot or too cold and they get b1tchy, exactly like we do.
The standing queen will let a queen live, and maybe two. One to replace her. Depends on her age. Another wrinkly but that's not gonna happen often, the "let 2 new queens live".

That's enough typing.
And this stuff is obviously deeper, but I know you'll think it into submission. Or call me.
But it's temperature in the hive.
You can use the same question to answer "why does part of the hive swarm sometimes, but the whole swarms sometimes?"
You won't find an answer for that anywhere. Or maybe you will now. That was the 64 dollar question years ago.
But it's easy enough to figure out.
Temperature.

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

Oh, the new queen thing, also temperature induced in most cases. Or in all.
A young queen can take the stress. The old one can't.
Temperature causes the slowing egg production, too.

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

Come to Butthead.
:lr :lr :lr

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

Interesting Stuff On Bees, My Friends!:D:tu

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

Some New Information I Found:
http://www.buzzaboutbees.net/swarmingbees.html

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

Appreciate all the great info - guys: thanks!

Was able to observe the hive a great deal this weekend while spreading what seemed like a metric ton of bark mulch in the yard.

It was pretty cool to see the bees coming back to the hive carrying pollen balls. They actually have an area on their hind legs called a pollen basket, and as they collect pollen during their foraging, they roll it together in a ball and carry it in the pollen basket. Was reading they can carry their weight in pollen, and an average colony will collect 100 pounds of it during the course of a season.
https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4171/3...f697ebc6_z.jpg

And here's one of the girls working a basket of hanging flowers I put near the hive. You can see she is carrying a pollen ball too.
https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2827/3...5d7abda2_z.jpg

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

We opened up the hive tonight to remove the feeder frame and replace it with a regular frame.

The bees had been building some comb in the open space between the inner cover and the tops of the frames. That's because I was using a one-inch spacer board to allow the bees access to the pollen patty. I removed that as well -- they seem to be gathering sufficient resources and the patty is no longer needed. With the spacer board gone, the inner cover will sit just above the frames, and there won't be sufficient space for the bees to build excess comb. Now they fully concentrate on building the frames.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4189/3...f3a42003_z.jpg

Took my first sting tonight while chiseling the comb off the inner cover. I suppose it had to happen sooner or later. My fault for wearing shorts. Got me just below the knee. Felt barley more than a mosquito bite though.

Saving all the comb for future use (lots of uses for beeswax, but you need A LOT of it).

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

Awesome pics and information. Love at First Sting- great Scorpions album btw.

Tom, remember wear shirts with sleeves and no shorts, you might wanna invest in actual shoes as well. :lr

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

No. it's your fault for placing a swarm of bees on your lawn. :2

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

Sleeves. Check.
Jeans. Check.
Shoes. Check.
Pollen balls. Ch....wait, what?

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

I've seen those legs...that's a lot of "dermis"...surprised you felt it at all! :D

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

Nice, Vin, transitioning to a fully functional setup!

I find that honey bee stings are easily ignored. Bumble bee stings less so and hornets are just asking for a MADD (Mutually Assured Destruction) response.

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

Wow, I didn't realize there is so much prep when it comes to this.

I am learning a ton.

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

It's enough to keep someone "beezy"

:D

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

Freaking awesome, Vin. Looks like you and Grace are well on your way to parenting 60,000 or so young girls. :tu

Agree. Conditions almost have to be perfect weather wise, to be able to 'rob' honey from a first year hive. A lot depends on how you want to manage your hive(s). You can take honey from your girls, but you'll most assuredly have to supplement their stores in late summer with a sugar solution. Personally I'm not a fan of this, but lots of beekeepers do this with great success. I would take one frame of honey though to reward all your hard work, Vin. :)



There are some theories out there that say if you add a cigar leaf or two to your smoker, the natural insecticide in tobacco will help keep the varroa destructors (parasitic mites) at bay. Doubtful at best. I've done hive inspections without any protection other than a good Cuban cigar. Works sometimes. :sl



You are beeutiful Tom, or a beeut as it were. ;)

Spring and Summer inspections are 'easy'. Just wait until they are defending their honey. :hy

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

Hopefully they don't defend until August or later, Mark? :D :r

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

You might be hitting prime time, Tom :D

In the halls of justice they say 'If it doesn't fit, you must acquit'

In the bee world it's 'If there's a drought, look out' ;)

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

**** it, I've been stung by hornets and wasps, this will bee a cake walk! :D

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

Did a hive inspection this past weekend. (There's some video, but I need to edit it down so my Flickr account to accept it.)

The bees have drawn out about 50% of the frames, and new bees are starting to emerge from the brood comb.

Will be checking again later this week because once they've drawn out 80% of the frames in the current box, I need to add a second box.

Grace took a couple bee stings for the team. :D No video of that, unfortunately.

Will try to get the video up in the next day or so because there's some cool activity going on in the hive.

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

Is a second box considered a "new hive"?...Will the first box get jealous and angry if caught playing with the second box?...

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

Second box creates a larger hive. A strong, healthy hive generally has two boxes of 10 frames each and approximately 50-60,000 honey bees. (All of which are programmed to swarm on July 15.)

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

that's a LOT of bees!....do errant bean bags agitate the masses and can we smear honey on anyone traveling from CT??

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

Can you draw it? THATS what we need

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

you're already getting honey out of this? very cool, can't wait for some pics Vin.

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

No honey yet. Or at least know honey that I can use. All the honey that's being produced right now is for the bees themselves.
Posted via Mobile Device

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

I like Keith's CT idea. ;) :D

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4170/3...2d4d665d_c.jpg

Clicking on the photo above should bring you to the hive inspection video from this past Saturday. A few things to note:

* My dopey dog tries to eat a bee right at the beginning of the video. Fortunately, she fails.

* The camera work is a little shaky. Grace got me a GoPro for Christmas, and this was our first time using it. Will need to have a steadier and slower hand in the future. Tried to cut out as much of the nausea-inducing scenes as possible. :)

* You really get a sense for how the bees don't give a sh!t about us poking around. Some of them are buzzing about, of course, but for the most part they're just focused on doing their bee thing.

* Need to figure out how to capture individuals images from the video because there's some good shots of brood cells and honey cells, but the video progresses too quickly to see them clearly.

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

Vin, this is the first of your several videos that has played for me, so my first chance to see what it is that you're doing. Most interesting. It's surprising that so little smoke is needed to keep the bees docile. Or maybe they just shrug their bee shoulders and think, "Eh, this guy again," I dunno.

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

Helmet cam needed!....and love the shirt tucked into the sweatpants, its a good look on you...Dumb question: Is the "honey-comb shape" already on the frames, or do the bees make that with such precision?

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

Fashion is secondary to preventing bees flying up open shirts, pants, shorts, etc. :D

The frames I use are pre-printed with a very light raised honeycomb pattern & the bees build off that. Without it, they would still build out comb in the general shape, but it wouldn't be as tidy.

The comb from this earlier photo was built free-form and was not on a frame. You can see they still build it in the typical honeycomb shape.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2949/3...67bc516427.jpg

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

For stills I have always found going frame by frame on a computer and doing screen caps works well.

I couldn't get within 50 yards of that box of death, I'd be gassing them like I was Assad on a Saturday night partying with my buddy the Grand General Khamenei Pooh Bah of Iran, not just spritzing them with a little smoke.

That being said a honey lemon BBQ sauce on ribs with honey right from the source does sound tantalizingly good.

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

not sure why I find this so fascinating ...but I do...:tu

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

Still very cool Vin and thanks for keeping this updated! And your pup is cute. Have you tasted any honey out of the hive yet? I know I wouldn't be able to resist once I saw the honey production.

Does the dog bother the hive?

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

I won't be taking honey out of the hive until much later this summer, if at all this year. As this is a new hive, my number one priority is to make sure the hive is strong and healthy. Part of that is ensuring the bees have enough food stores (pollen & honey) to overwinter in snowy New England.

If I get lucky, there might be some surplus honey in the fall, and that would be completely awesome. Too early to tell yet, though.

The dog doesn't bother the hive. She's sniffed around a bit, and I am absolutely certain the bees will let her know if she's making a pest of herself. :D So far though, all is good. (Grace's sister has a lab mix puppy that found out first hand why you don't stick your snuffler in the hive. She didn't go near it again after that experience.)

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

Now we'll learn just how fast Tom can run.:D

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

Hmmm...if only you'd learn likewise....just my 2 copper penny's worth...:D

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

Wow

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

While setting up a sprinkler the other night, I inadvertently showered the hive for a few moments. Not the hugest of deals because it's covered, but I did witness something pretty interesting take place immediately afterwards. Once the water cut off, the bees instantly started scurrying about, drinking up the water and bringing it inside the hive for later use.

The video below is less than 10 seconds long, and you may have to loop through a few times, but you'll see a bee right near the bottom of the frame extend her tongue to suck up the water. On a relative basis, Gene Simmons has nothing on bees! The tongue rolls out of their mouth sorta' like a New Years Eve noisemaker.

(Sorry for the eye strain on the video - I really have to figure out how to get better at this)

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4169/3...8fdc7cb3_o.jpg

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

I think that CA should take up a collection to install a "bee cam" at Vin's place so that we can check out the hive(s) any time.

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

I learned beekeeping as a kid on an orchard. My wife wanted to start a few hives until I pointed out how we don't even have enough time for all the chores we have already. Maybee when we retire, which is getting sooner.

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

Hey Vin, bees from National Geographic!

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/...50415-ngm-bees

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

Theif stole $1 million worth of hives.

https://www.usatoday.com/videos/news...ies/101816412/

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

Still so cool to watch and read everything.

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

Last Friday Grace & I did a hive inspection to gauge the girl's progress in building out the remaining frames in the brood box. They're doing great, and have filled 75%-80% of the frames with drawn comb, so it's time to add a second box.

The second box is identical to the first: 10 frames for them to build on. As they finish off their work on the first box, the bees will move up into the second and continue to build.

The whole point of this is to grow a strong, stable, healthy hive with ample space for both resources and brood. The queen will continue to lay eggs in the second box, and the bees will also produce honey & store pollen in there as well. And as I mentioned before, the honey in these boxes are for the bees to use to feed themselves and nourish the new larva. It's not for me to harvest. That'll come down the road only after they've successfully built out the second box to capacity.

Here's what the hive looks like now:
https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4200/3...3f21226d_z.jpg




Wanted to document some of the more interesting finds during the inspection.

This is a frame of comb that has been nearly 100% built out.

• If you look along the left side, you'll see some open "uncapped" comb with little crescent shaped larva in it. They’re the white-ish things in the comb that look a little like a slug.
• Just to the right of the larva is capped brood comb. It’s the butter yellow comb in the left third of the frame. The brood comb has a slightly raised texture to it. After the larva reach a certain point, the worker bees cap their comb to allow them to pupate and grow into adult bees much like a caterpillar develops into a butterfly while in its chrysalis.
• In the center of the frame, you can see the buttery yellow comb changes both in color and texture. The darker colored capped comb is stored honey. The capping has a slight indentation to it vs. the raised quality of the brood comb. Don’t know why this is, but it’s one of the ways of telling what kind of comb you’re looking at.
• Along the very bottom edge of the frame, notice the puffed up individual combs that are somewhat bullet shaped. This is brood comb, but instead of worker bees, male drones are developing in there. Drones are larger than workers and need a larger space in which to develop. For the most part, drone brood comb is found at the edges of the frame and in much, much fewer numbers than worker brood.
• The empty comb to the far right probably had honey in it, or it may have had brood. The darker color of the comb tells me it’s been used before. Bees “polish” the comb after each use, and this polishing turns the comb darker. What I don’t know & need to research is do the bees reuse comb cells strictly for the same purpose? For example, if it starts out as a brood comb, does it forever stay a brood comb, or do they change it up at times and put honey in a comb that once housed brood?

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4189/3...53f873f1_z.jpg


The photo below is a closer view of the brood comb (both open & capped) from a different frame in the hive.

• You can see the bees have stored pollen in the comb cells along the right hand side of the photo. They pack the pollen down into the comb with their heads. Pollen is their protein source and a key component in honey production as well. In fact, they flavor and color of honey will be directly impacted by the type of pollen the bees bring back from their foraging flights each day.
• The open comb cells in the middle of the capped brood are cells from which a new worker bee has recently emerged. Upon entering the world, the first thing a new bee does is clean and polish her cell so it’s ready to be reused as soon as needed.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4195/3...b67fca57_z.jpg


This final pic shows capped honey in the upper two-thirds of frame. (The lower left corner of the photo looks to be brood.) You can get a sense for the dimpling inward texture of the capping on the honey cells. The hollowed out comb cells are empty, having been used as food for the hive.
https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4227/3...13103ec2_z.jpg


Will check the hive in another couple weeks or so to see what kind of progress they're making on the new box. The pace should really start to ramp up now as new bees are emerging every day.

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

Still loving this thread. Thanks, Vin!

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

Awesome update, thanks Vin. If I need a favor from a good apiarist I know who to call :tu

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

Bees are so damn efficient. Thanks for the entertaining and enlightening updates!

Re: New Hobby: Bee Keeping
 

Hey Vin, I know you brought in a queen from the same "farm" as the stock of bees when you started this hive earlier in the spring, but have you seen any signs of any queen cells in the bottom box? I'd be interested to see if your first new generation of brood rejects the queen now that you put in the second box up top if she refuses to move to the new comb they make. As far as cell reuse, a lot of times if the "paper" of the cocoons that previously hatched are still in cells, they will only place eggs in there, while former storage cells (from pollen or honey) they'll reuse for anything.
Your hive is looking good and I'm glad to see such a lively hive with the crazy weather we have gotten over the past month.