New Queens are Laying!

Dmitry Queen and Eggs

Did a quick inspection after work today to see how the queens were doing. The brood I gave the Dmitry hive has nearly all hatched and the queen has begun to lay.  You can see her in the upper right corner of the photo and you can just make out the eggs in the cells.

Brood in the Sasha Hive

 I didn't take the time to look for the new Sasha queen but she's just that much ahead of Dmitry with her brood but that's because she was released from her cage a few days sooner than the Dmitry queen.

I'll check them again in a week, but I'm confident both hives are on their way to becoming good hives!

The Day I (Almost) Lost a Queen

New Sasha Queen

My special friends Leah, Alex and Macallan along with their Aunt Sara visited the hives to help me check to see if the new queens had made it out of their cages. We first looked in on the Sasha hive and found the queen out and about. She has not yet begun to lay yet, but everything looks good so far. Before closing up the hive, we all had a taste of honey fresh off the frame as the Sasha hive has lots of honey going on!

The Dmitry hive queen was still in her cage so I removed it to show the kids. Aunt Sara held it while I peeked at the brood. No one noticed that the candy in the cage was eaten away on the back side which allowed the queen to make her exit. All of a sudden I heard Sara say, "Oh, here's the queen!" as the queen crawled up and out the opening of the cage. I turned to look just as the queen took flight and circled round and round, up over our heads until I lost sight of her...

Dmitry queen safely back home.

#%!?*# was running through my head but with little guests at the apiary, I think I said something more along the lines of, "This is not good..." Yet as soon as she took flight, she came back down and landed on the edge of the articulating cover leaning up against the next hive. I had honey on one end of the hive tool from getting the honey for the kids to taste, so I simply put the sticky end under the queen and transported her back to her new home. 

I know how lucky we were that the queen returned and I promise that I will never do that again! Whew!

Thinking of Nurse Bees in the Middle of the Night

Woke in the middle of the night and was thinking of the bees. (Don't you think about your bees when you're awake at night?) I was worried that perhaps I didn't give the Dmitry hive (the new split) enough nurse bees to keep the brood warm while that hive gets established. When I made the Sasha split last year, that is exactly what happened and a lot of the brood died.

Last night our temps were around 40 degrees so as soon as I got home from work I transferred a bunch of nurse bees from the OV hive to Dmitry - using a spritz of Honey-B-Healthy to mask the scent. The queen is still in her cage with the candy in place. If I happened to loose some of that brood, I can easily give them some more. How lucky I was that first year with only one hive! So many things could have gone wrong with no other hives to draw from!

New Queens Arrived and Installed

I began the morning with another inspection of the Sasha hive to look for the queen. Even with the excluders in place to keep her confined, I could not find her. You know me... I'd rather know where she is instead of where she is not, so with the help of the husband we moved the entire hive around the corner out of sight and, leaving an empty box back at the hive, we brushed off every frame. The theory being that the bees would return to the hive and the queen, if she was in the hive to begin with would be brushed off and left behind as she cannot fly. Nearly every bee made its way back to the hive and no queen was spotted among those left on the ground.

The queens arrived in small cages with 4-5 attendants in each and a candy plug for food. If you look closely in the left-hand cage, you can spot the new queen with a white mark on her back. It will take about 3 days for the attendants to eat though the candy which will then allow access to a hole in the top of the cage. The queen will simply crawl out and hopefully, begin to lay eggs. The time it takes to eat through the candy is important because it allows the other bees in the hive to accept her as their new queen. If the queen were released directly into the hive the bees would think her an intruder, ball her and kill her.

New queen cage placed in hive. 

Once all the frames were cleared of bees and back in box, we placed the queen cage between two frames with the hole facing up. If the hole were facing down and any of the queens attendants died, their bodies could potentially block the hole and prevent the queen from emerging.

It took only moments for the bees to cover the cage, thinking she's an intruder. Fingers crossed that she is accepted. I'll wait a week and then check to see that she's emerged and has begun laying eggs.

Rookie Dmitry Orlov

The other queen was used to make a split from the OV hive, adding a third hive in the apiary. This hive will be known as the Dmitry hive, named after another Russian hockey player for the Washington Capitals.

I pulled out three frames of mostly covered brood and house bees and placed them in a box with drawn comb. There was a big difference in how this hive basically ignored the queen cage. I put the top feeder on and will check again in a week to see if the queen has emerged and has begun laying.

While I was selecting the frames I wanted from the OV hive, I easily found the queen. This hive has been my strong hive, doing all the right things at the right time. I'm hoping that by requeening the Sasha hive and creating the Dmitry hive with a good queen, these hive will bring the apiary into full honey production next year. :-)

A Hive Divided

Sasha hive with queen
excluders separating each box.

A hive that has been queenless for at least 24 hours has a better chance of accepting a new queen so, with the new Russian queens arriving tomorrow I planned on removing the current Sasha queen today. Finding the queen, even one that is unmarked, has never been a problem for me... until today, that is.

After the wonderful experience with the newly emerged queen two weeks ago, she should have mated and been laying by now. But not only did I not find her, but there is no brood in the hive either, and I checked it over carefully - two times - even checking the inside walls of the boxes. The bees were loosing their patience with me by then so I put a queen excluder between each box and closed it up. I figured this will make it easier to finder her in the morning in case those new legs of hers helped her to scoot between boxes.

This got me wondering what are the other methods commonly used to find the queen when you want to replace her. The following are the most common methods I found:

Go to the Center of the Hive

1. Space the frames apart in the middle of the brood box.
2. Carefully lift one frame out of the middle. 
3. Briefly scan over each side of this frame (like reading, taking about a minute).  
4. Place this frame in a spare box and continue with the next frame, working your way towards the outside of the box. 

The queen may be seen on the wall of the hive body or on the bottom board.  The center
of the brood nest on a frame with eggs is the most likely place to find her.  Speed is an
advantage because the queen can hide well.  Once you have found her, shake
bees off combs, manipulate combs, lift honey out to top and replace with empty brood combs and introduce queen cage.

Go to the Outside of the Hive

1. Place an empty box next to the hive. 
2. Remove the outside frame furthest from you, check for the queen, and place in the empty box. 
3. Remove the frame closest to you, again checking for the queen before placing in the spare box.  While it is not usual to find the queen on the outside frames, it can happen.  By removing these frames first from the hive it will create a light barrier between the next frame and the hive wall.  This will confine the queen to the remaining frames. 
4. Before checking both sides of the frame closest to you, glance down the face of the frame.  Often, the queen stands out taller than the other bees and can be more easily spotted on the face of the frame before it is removed.  Repeat for remaining frames until the queen is found. 

Divide and Conquer 

1. Put an empty box next to the hive. 
2. Take out half the frames and place them in the empty box.  
3. Place in each of the two boxes empty combs to make up the space where frames are missing. 
4. This gives you 4 frames of bees and brood and 4 frames of pollen/honey/empty combs in each box. 
5. The next day one of the hives will have fanning bees at the entrance.  She will now be easier to find because you know which box she is in and only have half the number of bees to search. 

Drift Method 
Suitable for apiaries with pairs or rows of hives.

1. Move hive to a new position behind a landmark and turn entrance 180 degrees. This will cause all the field bees to return to the hive next door.  Usually this is OK under good conditions. 
2. The next day, or even a few hours later, you only have nurse bees and the queen bee left in the hive on the brood frames. This will give you the edge in finding the queen. 

Divide and Divide Again 

1. Place an empty hive box next to the hive. 
2. Use the Go to the Outside of the Hive method first. 
3. Place 4 frames in each box with bees adhering then pair up frames by pushing them together.  This should make the bees and the queen go between either two frames where it is darker. 
4. After 10 minutes, look for the queen and remember to look on the walls and floor as well.

The Last Resort 

This one is a last resort and will absolutely remove the queen.  It is a good method to use on a drone layer or an overly aggressive hive. 

1. Move the whole hive 10-20 yards or more, behind landmarks preferably. This will cause the bees to drift back to their original position. 
2. Shake all of the bees off the comb onto the ground and place all frames into a new hive body which is elevated on a table.  This ensures that the queen cannot re-enter the hive. 
3. Return the brood box to the original spot to collect all returning field bees. The queen will not be able to fly back. 
4. Check 7 days later for queen cells, knock them off and introduce caged queen.