Sasha II Bad Brood

A brood pattern like this is just what a beekeeper doesn't want to see! Everything is wrong, from spotty to drone cells. The only reason I'm not too worried about it is that this is from Sasha II and she's just begun laying eggs. One cause of a bad brood pattern is the workers will remove unviable eggs, and leave those that will grow into healthy worker larva. Drone cells are a indication that the queen did not mate but I'm of the opinion that there are enough worker bees in the brood to make me think otherwise.

Sasha II



Other frames in that box have similar small areas of covered brood but without as many drone cells as in this photo. I used the flash so that you can see there are lots of cells containing larvae, older in the middle and younger as you move out. Sasha II just needs to get going. 
 

Sasha I

Sasha I continues to populate the bottom box and while there is less covered brood, there is a fair amount of larvae.



I know the bees will sort it out... they have four dry queen cups ready to employ should they decide Sasha II is not going to work out. And for now, Sasha I remains the better layer but that isn't saying much. The lack of orientation flights is noticeable!

I've kept the feeder on and they take it heartily, but there is no real honey production yet. September 1st is the landmark date in my area to really push the feed buildup for the winter. There are four partial frames of in the OV hive's honey super so I can always move some to the Sasha hive. I have options ready for when the bees let me know what they need. There is still time.

Adding a comical touch to my morning inspection were green bees in the hive! I'm not versed enough yet to know which plants produce which color pollen, but the bloom chart for my area shows dandelions, bugloss, clover, thistle, milkweed, mint and more are in bloom. Could these be mint green bees? (te he he)

Is Sasha II Laying Yet?

By my calculations, today is the first day that I could conceivably see eggs from Sasha II so as soon as I got home from work I checked in on the hive. While I did not inspect every frame, I found lots of eggs on two frames in the middle medium super. (Sorry for the crappy photo but if you look closely, you can see the eggs.)

Sasha II

Sasha II was on the second frame I pulled and by her size you can see she has mated. :-) I carefully replaced the frame and decided to see if there was new brood in the bottom box, too.

Sasha I

Again, I didn't inspect every frame but did see a few covered brood and a nice amount of young larvae on the two frames I checked. I found Sasha I still live and well  and if you click on this photo to view the larger image you will see an egg sticking out of her abdomen — it was caught and left behind on the edge of that cell shortly after I took the photo.

So, the question is... who's eggs are those? Not that it really matters as it will all be shorted out soon enough.

Waiting....

No inspection of the bees this weekend. The OV hive is quite cranky when our weather gets hot and we've had heat indexes of 125 degrees this past week! I've respectfully given them space and spared myself a sting or two.

Sasha II should have had her nuptial flight(s) by now and I'll start looking for eggs on Tuesday. I've spent a bit of time in the mornings and evenings observing the sasha hive in hopes of witnessing Sasha II's orientation flight, but no such sighting. I know what I experiencing Sasha I's was a rare event!

BUMBA Friends Save a Colony in Washington, DC

A friend at BUMBA posted an incredible story of a recent rescue of a multi-year colony that has managed to survive in a dying sycamore tree in downtown Washington, DC. 


Read about the bee's relocation on her blog: City Bees - Urban Honey is Twice as Sweet. 

Happy Birthday Sasha II

Did a quick inspection this morning to see if the supersedure queen hatched and she sure did! The workers will now dismantle the queen cell.

This was the first time this hive has ever been feisty - the guard bees were not happy I was poking around but since we've had a hatching, I wanted to see where both queens were within the hive.


Sasha I - An emergency queen born from the spring split.



I found Sasha I right away in the middle box (remember I'm using three medium supers instead of two deeps). She's not really laying anymore. There are a few cells in the bottom box with young larvae but I didn't see any eggs.



The top box is full of bees but they are not drawing out the comb yet. They are feeding like mad from the top feeder as nectar is low this time of summer. The middle box is being used for some brood but mainly for storing nectar/sugar syrup.



Sasha II - The supersedure Queen.



Located the new queen in the bottom box. As her queen cell was much larger than the one made for the emergency queen, I was expecting her to be larger upon birth. If all goes well, she'll begin to lay eggs anytime after July 26. Shortly after Sasha II is mated and begins laying eggs, the worker bees will kill Sasha I by "balling" her, clustering tightly around her until she dies from overheating. 

I'm sad to know my first home-grown queen didn't perform as needed but am hopeful Sasha II will be a good queen and get this hive going. The population in the hive is good right now. They can take care of it for a bit while the new queen mates and begins to take charge. Hopefully Sasha II will give them a lot more brood in order to be a vibrant hive going into the fall.

Sasha, Sasha, Sasha!

I had been thinking that I should replace the queen in the Sasha hive as she's just not laying like gangbusters. But what she does lay is done in a good pattern as you can see in this photo. This frame is in the top box (of two mediums) and you can see she's eager to lay even before the frame is fully drawn out with comb.

I'm finally happy with the population of the hive, bees are everywhere and boy, are they gentle! Inspected all the frames today as I was hoping to see full frames of brood in the four frames I added after extracting the honey last week. But what I found besides the frame of brood pictured above was nectar being stored in most of the frames of the top box.

And I found another surprise — a  beautiful supersedure cell not yet fully capped. Those smart bees made the decision for me! How that egg got up there is a mystery. You can see there are no other eggs in the cells around her as well as elsewhere on that frame.

Because the life cycle of a bee is so regimented, we know she'll be fully capped by day 8 (and she certainly wasn't there 7 days ago) so that will help us know what to expect. She should emerge about July 18 or 19th, take her nuptial flights around the 23rd to the 27th and I can expect to begin to find eggs anytime after the 26th.

I did a very careful inspection of the bottom box and it was difficult to find eggs anywhere. I ended up taking photos of the likely brood frames in order to blow them up on the computer and then I did see some eggs. There is a small amount of larva but very few capped pupae. I found the queen, seen here. Take a last look at her because she will be going to the big hive in the sky very soon.

I've heard a lot of beekeepers says that the bees mostly except emergency queens until they make their own and that the same goes for fall requeening... they will accept her until they can make their own. I'm sure that has been the case with this hive. The population in this hive is finally at a point where it is strong — the two medium supers are pretty full with bees.  

It has been a fun learning experience to do a walk away split. But it has also been a struggle nearly every step of the way. We're now at the end of this queen's life and the beginning of a new learning experience for me as I watch the next queen work to build up the hive for the winter.

A Little Taste of Heaven

Sent a few jars of honey to my parents and they responded with photos of the two of them enjoying the bounty!

I didn't get into bees in order to get honey but having a bit of honey to harvest and share has proven to be a reward in itself!

Honey Harvest

We bottled up the honey this morning and I designed this logo for the labels. The 4 frames harvested produced 21 cups of honey! That is just enough for all of us to enjoy this first year.

Next year I'll have two hives producing honey but for now, we'll be enjoying our first harvest of home-grown goodness!

Harvest Time

I was like a  little girl this morning, excited to finally harvest some honey! The OV hive had 4 full frames of honey but I left 2 additional frames that were only 1/2 capped and there were more partial frames not yet capped. We may get a second harvest this fall but I will probably leave these frames for the bees to feed on over the winter.

After reading various how-tos, I came up with my own, home-grown system: I covered the bottom of a nuc box with two layers of aluminum foil and used the inner cover (with the hole covered with tape) as a lid. This made it easy to hold and transport the frames while keeping the robbers out. I pulled one frame at a time and simply brushed away the bees while walking away from the hive.

Since there were only 4 frames to extract, we worked on the back deck as I had been lead to believe that extracting honey can be a mess. In reality, things went quite smooth. I used a serrated-edge bread knife to cut away the cappings and did this over a cookie sheet that has a lip on it, commonly known as a jelly roll pan. The husband spun the frames and we were both amazed at how easily warm honey spins out of the cells.

Once the honey was extracted we covered it, along with a strainer full of cappings, and left them both out in the sun to allow the heat of the afternoon to aid the honey in draining and straining.

The honey was strained through a fine strainer into a storage bucket and it will sit tonight to get most of the air bubbles out before filling it into jars. The honey looked light on the frames so we were surprised with the dark golden color of the extracted honey.

And the smell is out of this world! The scent is pure honey and the taste is so much sweeter but not sickingly sweet. Too bad there is precious little as I'd love to share some with everyone who has supported our adventure! A medium sized frame weighs about 4.5 lbs each when full of honey and these four frames produced about a gallon of extracted honey.

Sasha Hive Doing Better With Brood

What a wonderful sight to see! This is a picture of brood in the second box of the Sasha hive. Look at that lovely brood pattern! The queen wants to lay, even though this frame is not entirely drawn out with comb, but the bees are certainly doing so in the second box now.

There are 5 full frames of brood in the bottom box with the adjacent half filled on the frames located to each side of those 5 frames. Adding two frames of brood and nurse bees last week really made a difference in the population. This morning I observed many orientation flights!

I placed the 4 extracted frame from the OV hive in the top box and the bees immediately went to work cleaning the honey from the comb. They'll prepare the cells and I'm sure the queen will have these frames full with brood in no time!