Sasha Hive Cleaning House

There are finally enough bees to do some cleaning I am so happy to finally see they removed the wax moth larvae debris left on a couple of frames. The hive makes hardly any sound compared to the boisterous OV hive but it looks so clean and tidy. There is no other evidence of a stressed hive.

The Queen is laying a nice brood pattern as you can see - she is on the little patch of honey to the bottom right of the frame. She's still only laying on those few frames but I'm confident she'll move around more now that the bees have tidied up the other frams and start laying more. I know it is just the end of May but I am concerned that they may not make it through the winter if the population doesn't start increasing more.

Surprise Queen Laying Very Well

Isn't the queen pretty? Such a contrast to my first queen which was mostly black.

Working all day I am not home to watch the hive as much as I would like but I am just not convinced that they swarmed. There are sooooo manyyyyy bees in there now, as much as I would expect the hive to have for their first full spring. And they are LOUD - those rowdy Russians! :-)  

The top brood box is very heavy with honey. I'm really glad I made the decision to use all mediums instead of deeps. There were 3 queen cups along the bottom of one frame so I moved one full honey frame up into the super to give them some room for brood. this new queen is laying a very nice brood pattern already.

I did put the queen excluder on along with another honey super. I'm early for the extra super but I plan on pretty much leaving them alone for the next few weeks except for a quick peek in a couple of days to see if they decided they won't work through the excluder and in that case, I'll just remove it and leave it off.

This is such a great hive! Except for the surprise queen, everything really has been textbook and they have taught me so much. I have decided on requeening both hives this fall with new Russian queens to keep the benefits of the Russians bees strong in the hives.

Surprise! There's a New Queen in the Hive!

What can I say? I've been in both hives enough to feel like I know what is going on, but I was caught completely off guard on finding a new queen in the OV hive today. Here are the facts:

• 5-10-2011 Only looked through the hole of the inner cover to see if the bees were starting to draw out comb in the honey super. Lots of activity up there.
  
  
  5-8-2011 Saw queen in top box and good brood meaning eggs, larvae and pupae. Removed excluder and added honey super.
  
  4-30-2011 Left hive alone for last 2 weeks. Saw queen and good brood. Did find multiple queen cups along the bottom of the frame and a SWARM CELL THAT WAS OPENED ALONG THE SIDE. Wasn't too concerned as the Russians have been making and destroying swarm cells for the past month.
  
  4-19-2011 Saw queen and good brood. No swarm cells present.
  
  4-17-2011 Saw queen but didn't notice any eggs. Was only doing a quick inspection and once I spotted the queen, I closed up the hive. It was later that I realized I didn't notice any eggs.

A new queen certainly did emerge from the swarm cell sometime shortly before 4-30-2011. Here she is in all her golden glory!

But I do not believe that the hive swarmed. There are a lot of bees in the hive - it is noticeably noisier - and there were so many signs that the hive is queen right. She was easy to locate as the bees showed me exactly where she was once I was down in the bottom box.

So, what happened to my lovely dark Russian queen? I did not inspect every single frame but the bees gave me no indication of a queen being elsewhere in the hive.

This leaves me with some questions, first of which is, did they swarm? Hard to say as the population of the hive leads me to believe not.

I spotted the original queen every time I inspected the hive, including after I found the opened swarm cell. Would the hive create a new queen while the old queen was present and not swarm?

Hmmmm... lots to think about tonight. I will certainly miss my lovely, dark Russian queen!

Lots of Activity in the Hives Today

The Sasha hive had lots of bees flying today. I didn't check on them this weekend as there were just checked Tuesday last. I'm giving the queen some time to build up the hive and for the OV hive to really start working on filling that honey super.

Our days have had nicely moderate temps and spring is just lively this year instead of how we typically rushed into hot temps in years past. Let's hope that means a nice long honey flow this year!

No Queen Excluder = More Bees in the Box

Checked on the OV hive today to see what's going on now that the queen excluder has been removed. Researching to use one or not I read that some bees seem to have trouble wanting to work above it, or that it should be left off until after the comb is drawn out. My plan is to leave it off entirely for now.

Through the opening in the inner cover I could view a large number of bees were up there! Not so much as drawing out comb but they were certainly checking out the neighborhood.

What I hope to learn is, whether the queen will lay brood up there and if so, how much? I expect that there be full frames of honey that do not contain brood, usually to the outside of the frames containing the brood. At 5 lbs of honey per frame, I'd be satisfied with 2 - 4 frames of honey this summer. Enough to share with friends.

New Queen Doing Much Better

When I opened the hive today, the first thing I noticed
was the increase of bees, all looking up at me.

Thanks to the additional brood and nurse bees added to the Sasha hive, I was less worried about them making it through the cool nights we had this past week when temps dropped into the low 40s.



There is a much better brood pattern and the queen has even been laying on the near side of next frame, instead of remaining on her birth-frame. That's quite an improvement! 

The frame pictured here is the frame of brood that I introduced last week so the spotty brood pattern is from those bees hatching but as you can see, the queen as filled in the spaces quite nicely, and there is a nice pattern of eggs visible in the lower right area of the pic.

I did kill two wax moth larvae and they still don't seem to be feeding from the top feeder. I refreshed that with sugar syrup with a bit of Honey-B-Healthy to see if that will get them to take. They are not yet drawing out any new frames, but they are storing nectar.

It's been 32 days since the Queen hatched. She's a late bloomer but seems that she's finally on her way!

No Queen Excluder?!?

Met Stefano and Heidi Briguglio of Azure B this afternoon and what an inspiring conversation that was!

Besides a quick chat up on my split hive and the new queen, Stafano mentioned that he does not use a queen excluder. Not use a queen excluder? But I was taught the purpose of doing so and the helpful aid a queen excluder can be.... I'm paraphrasing here but it was explained that a happy and healthy hive is the result of giving the bees room to do their thing. More room prevents overcrowding and thus, reduces the desire to swarm.

The bees will naturally store entire frames of honey up top outside of the brood frames. If the queen happens to get some brood in there, don't pull those frames. Simple as that. And be sure the queen is not on the frames that you do pull. Come fall, the queen will move lower in the hive in preparation for winter cluster.

Stefano also gets rid of his drones. He explains that there are plenty of drones around to mate with a queen in the spring so he scrapes open their cells. Drones are silly fun, but they just take up space, eating too much. I didn't go through every box but did get rid of a number of drone cells in the OV hive. Within minutes, I watched a house bee drag a pupae out the entrance. Tidy creatures, these bees.

Stafano and Heidi live in Southern Maryland, not far from Accokeek. I will definitely make it a priority to visit their bee yard real soon!

Welcome New Nurse Bees

Overnight temps were in the 50's and I was worried that the Sasha hive may not have enough house bees to keep warm all the new brood that I moved in yesterday from the OV hive. As soon as the morning warmed up a bit, I gave them some nurse bees from the OV hive.

A quick inspection first and I was surprised to find the queen on the frame of brood I added yesterday! Glad to see her finally off her birth-frame.

Removed two of the end frames to allow for a nice sized opening in the center of the hive. Selected a very full frame from the center of the OV hive, made extra sure the queen was not on the frame, gave the bees a good spritzing of sugar syrup mixed with Honey-B-Healthy and brushed them into the Sasha hive. Put the top feeder on and closed up the hive.

Then did a quick check to find my beautiful, dark Russian queen in the top box of the OV hive before closing that one up. I feel better knowing that the Sasha hive will have more population as well as enough nurse bees to help them along.