Lost the OV Hive

I had been trying to not be in the bees all the time this summer but had I inspected more regularly I could have prevented the loss of the OV hive.

I was afraid the hive was too full and going to swarm so I left 5 boxes on to give them plenty of room but they swarmed anyway and the 5 boxes meant there was way to much of a hive for the few bees left behind to take care of. The wax moths moved in, made nests, ate wax and any brood and honey that was left behind. The remaining bees couldn't defend so much space and eventually died when their normal 42 days of life were up. 

Wax Moth Larvae Destruction

What you see in the photo here is the destruction caused by wax moth larvae. I was devastated when I opened the hive to find this knowing this was my fault! A strong and healthy colony could have successfully defended the hive against this.

Nearly every frame was affected. We froze 30 frames that weren't too badly affected as freezing them will kill any eggs and larvae that may be present and then scraped the remaining wax comb off of another 20 frames. We put them through a freeze cycle as well and they'll be ready for next spring.

The Dmitry hive has 5 boxes on it, lots of bees and honey so they are set for the winter.

I'm quite sad I lost my first, strong hive. But that's why it's called keeping bees. You've got to tend them - I could have prevented this had made the hive smaller after the swarm so that the few bees could have stopped the larvae from taking over.

Russian Apis Mellifera Semper Paratus

One of the decisions a new beekeeper must make is what strain of bees. Italian, Carniolan, and Russian are most common, each having specific benefits. For instance, Italians are known for their honey production, Carniolans are the most gentle. I selected Russian bees for their smaller winter cluster, overall resistance to disease and pests, and that bee production will increase and decrease relative to the amount of pollen available.

New beekeepers will often loose a colony to starvation in late winter when the queen has begun to increase her brood production while food stores are low in the hive. Because a Russian queen will not significantly increase her brood production until pollen is flowing, late winter losses are minimal. Plus the smaller winter cluster means less food stores are needed and what is stored will last longer with fewer bees relying on it to get through the winter.

Queen Cup in OV Hive

Another trait of a Russian colony that can be disconcerting for a new beekeeper is that the colony maintains active queen cells during the brood-rearing season. A queen cell in other colonies can be interpreted as an attempt to swarm (reduce overcrowding by establishing a new colony) or to supersede (kill and replace) the current queen. This is not the case with Russian colonies as the workers often destroy the extra queen cells before they fully develop.

While pulling frames last week to harvest honey, I spotted a swarm cell that had a small amount of white royal jelly in the bottom. Even though I could not detect the larvae, I assumed that the cell would be capped by now with a queen growing inside. I intended to move that frame, along with others containing brood in various stages and lots of bees in general (to account for some drifting back to the original hive) to create another hive in the apiary. But instead of a peanut-looking queen cell, today I found just a bunch of empty queen cups throughout the hive. 

In typical Russian fashion, the bees keep themselves ready just in case they need to make a new queen and have destroyed those that they do not need. I've learned by now to just enjoy the queen cups and not be alarmed by their presence, knowing that they're just Russian bees, doing what Russians do. 

Staying at Two Hives & Interesting Notes on Fanning

Baskets full of bright orange
pollen at the Dmitry hive.

A queen will not substantially increase brood production until nectar is flowing but the cooler temps have kept many spring plants from blooming in their normal time frame so queens have not been laying in abundance. And this has the bee suppliers running very behind in their orders this season. Packages of bees that would have normally been available in early- to mid-April are still not yet available mid- to late-May.

Typically a late installation of bees will put a new hive at a disadvantage. It can take 6-8 weeks for the bees to draw out enough comb needed to store the nectar and pollen as well as to make space for the queen to lay her eggs. By that time our area's spring nectar flow will be winding down, leaving the bees struggling for space and the hive weak in population.

My plan was to add a third hive this season to replace the loss of the Sasha hive, deciding to purchase a package of bees with a Russian queen instead of using my own bees as I wanted them available to add to and further strengthen the weaker Dmitry hive. And even though I have two boxes of drawn comb available that would help the hive begin with a heavy advantage, there is no estimate on when the package would arrive so I've decided to leave the apiary at the current two hives for this season.

Here is a short video of the OV hive as bees from both hives zoom in and out on their way to bring back pollen and nectar. I really enjoy standing there while they fly all around me, watching their flight paths to see in which direction they are foraging. Also visible are the large quantity of bees fanning at the entrance. Fanning draws out the warm air out of the hive and is mostly performed when abundant amounts of nectar are being brought in. Workers of all ages do this task but mainly young bees, less than 18 days old do the fanning, especially on hot days.

Fanning helps to circulate the air through the hive and to:

• regulate the hive's humidity at a constant 50 percent
• reduce the level of carbon dioxide (CO2)
• regulate brood temperature
• evaporate water carried into the hive to reduce internal temperatures
• evaporate excess moisture from unripened honey, which will cool or humidify the hive as it evaporates
• keep wax from melting as temperatures climb inside the hive.

Another type of fanning helps to spread the worker bee's pheromones. In this fanning the bee's abdomen is raised as the pheromone is secreted from a gland located near the tip of the abdomen. This pheromone has a sweet-smelling, lemony odor and is used to guide other bees toward the fanners. This is commonly seen:

• when bees are disoriented
• when a hive is opened that is queenless or has a virgin or newly mated queen, or 
• when a swarm begins cluster formation. 

The OV hive had this type of fanners today which has me wondering if the hive is preparing to swarm. Bees naturally perpetuate the species by splitting and swarming but a swarm weakens a hive and brings about a whole set of considerations that I'll address at another time...

We've had much rain lately, and today was certainly humid so the fanning could have been more for that reason than for a pending swarm. Nevertheless, I'll plan to cull the population of the OV hive in the next few days by supplementing the Dmitry hive just to be on the safe side.

Ready for the Honey Flow

Inspected both hives and rotated boxes today in preparation for the major honey flow. By now the hives have been increasing in population and bringing in lots of pollen.

OV Queen & Nice Brood Pattern

I began with the OV hive and found the top box so full of bees, with the same amount for the second and third as well as the bottom box, which I had expected to be empty as bees move up come spring and why boxes need to be rotated this time of year. Instead, I found the bottom box to be as full as every other box. While it is good to have a strong and thriving hive, having an overpopulated hive can be a problem that leads to a swarm, and we all know a swarm leaves behind a weakened hive.

I know the Dmitry hive is not thriving as there have been very few bees flying. While inspecting I found very little brood in the very middle of the second box with the bottom box empty as expected. I rotated the boxes and added five frames of brood and bees from the OV hive to give the Dmitry hive a boost.

Dmitry Queen With Very Little Brood

In order to move bees from one hive to another without risking chaos I gave the frames and bees a good spray of sugar water mixed with Honey-B-Healthy, which is an essential oil made from spearmint and lemongrass, among other things. It masks the scent of the other hive and by the time the bees clean off the spray, they are all nice and friendly with one another.

Accobee Apiary

Common beekeeping sense says knows that the Dmitry queen is probably not a good queen. She was doing great initially when first installed last spring, but then her brood patterns became inconsistent  I'll keep an eye on her over the summer and may requeen her come fall.

I will be replacing the Sasha hive with a new package ordered with a Russian queen, which is due any time now.  There is no telling at this point if that will end up being a strong or a weak hive. Dmitry is definitely a weak hive at the moment and OV has been going strong with their third queen since installed in 2010. I've said it before but it's worth noting again, a strong queen makes for a strong hive which makes their own strong queens.

Apiary Ready for Winter

Left to Right: Sasha, Dmitry and OV Hives

I have been worried about the status of all the hives going into fall but especially the Dmitry hive, the newest one in the center. This queen has just not taken up house very well, keeping to just a few preferred frames to lay her eggs. I've been feeding syrup heartily since Labor Day and the Dmitry hive, more than the other two, were gobbling it up which is always a good sign... and reinforced by the many bees taking orientation flights these past few warm days so I was hopeful the queen was finally branching out.

But today's inspection shattered my hopes... Dmitry has zero stores (no pollen or honey anywhere) and so few cells of brood that I'm contemplating combining the hive into another to get them through the winter. Have they only been eating the syrup instead of making honey? When I last inspected this hives late October I noticed this queen is a bit smaller than the others... perhaps that is contributing to her lack of filling this hive? They've never really recovered from the loss of most of the bees to pesticides this summer.

I had super'd up OV hive to six boxes and they did exactly what I wanted them to do by drawing out comb and making enough frames of honey to supplement the Dmitry hive. Even though I lost the OV queen in July and let the hive make another, it certainly stands true that a strong hive makes a strong queen. This OV hive has never let me down! I was able to add four frames of honey to each box in the Dmitry hive as well as replacing the undrawn frames with empty frames of comb. All Dmitry has to do now is fill the cells with honey! They don't have to waste time doing anything else this time of year. The top feeder is on and I've also begun to feed them back some of their honey using an entrance feeder. I'm giving them every opportunity to make it and if our weather stays mild they have a chance...

All the hives are now set for winter, being set up three medium supers on each. Sasha is doing outstanding with six frames of honey in the top box. The OV hive has four but I'm confident they'll make up for the frames I moved. I didn't take apart the Sasha or OV below the top boxes as they have everything all glued tight for winter with propolis and I don't need them to spend the energy doing so again had I opened them all up. I'm confident there's enough honey in each lower box by the weight of them and that they're doing what bees should be doing this time of year.

I'll leave the top feeders on all the hives as long as I can while I explore options for the Dmitry hive should they just not get their little bee-act together. I know I'm taking a chance with the overnight temps this coming week forecasted at temperatures well below that recommended for feeding syrup. Hopefully, they'll store up the syrup I'm feeding them and my worries will pass...

Getting the Feed On

OV Queen

Inspected all three hives this weekend to see how they're doing and where they stand for honey to get them set up for the fall. This was my first time inspecting every box of the OV hive and was very pleased with this new queen. Instead of being a lovely, dark Russian queen, she is a Maryland-bread, gorgeous golden color with a dark head and thorax with a dark tip on her abdomen. She's been going gang-busters. It is true that strong hives make for strong queens.

Eggs and Brood in Dmitry Hive

The Dmitry hive continues to be smaller than I'd like but since we're heading into the time of year where the population will be decreasing, I don't want to supplement the hive with bees from one of the other hives. The queen is laying good on a few 4 frames but experience has shown that she'll spread out soon. But if she doesn't real soon, I'll have to reconsider adding more bees.

I put the top feeder on all the hives to build them up for the coming winter. Now will just keep the feeders full and monitor their progress.

Dmitry Queen Laying Well Once Again

Dmitry queen in center of frame.

The Dmitry queen returned to laying eggs immediately after putting the feeder on and now, two weeks later you can see she is doing quite well and the population is growing. I still have the entrance reducer on and am hopeful I'll be able to remove it soon. Will keep the feeder on as we're still quite dry with very little in bloom right now.

Good news on the OV hive: Found good brood on the first frame I pulled so didn't disturb them any further. I closed them up and walked away happy that these two hives are once again back on the road to progress.

Checking in on New OV Queen

No eggs yet in the OV hive.

By now the new OV queen should be laying but as you can see here, there is nary an egg in sight! The hive, while still gentle was a tad bit more rowdy and acting queenright by chaining as I pulled out a frame.

When searching for the queen I always start in the middle of the box, often times peering down between the frames as the queen's longer legs will make her walk taller than the worker bees and this makes her easier to spot. But she's quick and shy of light - I caught a glimpse of behind and as fast as I tried to get to that frame, she had moved on deeper into the hive.

I didn't want to risk harming her so I closed up the hive and turned to check on the Dmitry hive to see that she's returned to laying eggs. Will observer her progress for the next week or so.

OV Hive Busy Making a New Queen

Yup.

You could easily see how the hive was very different from the moment I opened the boxes. The bees were too simply too gentle, this being my rowdy Russian hive.

As I feared, I harmed my queen when harvesting honey. Inspecting the hive just one week later I found a good 10 to 12 queen cells. I'll leave them alone now to let the queen emerge on or about July 17th. The first queen will kill all the other potential queens before they mature and emerge from their cells. She'll then fly out to mate and I'll inspect for eggs about a week later.

One Hive Clustered, One Hive... (well, you know how it is!)

Today is the 6th day since their last feeding so it was time for another feeding for the OV hive. Our temps have been in the low 40's with some days this past week being quite windy and brisk. My mild-mannered Sasha hive has perfectly clustered like the good little bees they are. But was I expecting the same for the OV hive? Oh no... Not the OV hive.

This picture has nothing to do with this
post but will certainly make you smile!

Those Russian bees were just hanging out and moving around, loving life while waiting for dinner to arrive. Since they replaced their queen this spring, they've not been the same as they were for the first year. They once were the textbook hive: rearing brood, making honey and clustering when they should be. Now they're the fun loving, full of life Russians that you expect any vodka-drinking Russian to be. So very different from the Sasha hive!

Last Inspection of 2011

Was a beautiful 62 degree day and the bees were flying so took advantage of it to inspect the hives and check on their honey stores. Since our temps have ranged from 45 to 65 degrees thus far this winter, the bees have remained up in the top box of both hives instead of clustering lower. With so many bees up top, it was impossible to see between the frames so had to pull one to check on the honey.

Can you spot the queen?

The OV bees were quite feisty! The one frame I pulled had just a few cells of honey so will begin feeding them fondant. And wouldn't you know it, but this frame also had the queen on it! I took a quick pic before slowly and carefully replacing it. No wonder the guard bees were after me! Last year I didn't begin feeding until the 25th of January but they were clustered in the bottom box until then.

I've mentioned this before but the Sasha hive is so very different from the OV hive and the differences are quite noticeable. Not only are the Sasha bees gentler than the OV bees but they are smaller and lighter in color. Only one guard bee flew up to check me out. They still have a fair amount of honey on the frames so will hold off feeding them for a bit.

Already planning for 2012 and adding the 3rd and final hive to our apiary. Need to inventory the supplies on hand and order the wooden ware.

Moved Some Drawn Frames to the Sasha Hive

I was reminded that a queen will scale down her laying during the dearth and pick back up again with the fall nectar flow as they are doing now in both hives. The bees in the Sasha hive are finally getting to work in the top box and this new queen is laying super up there as you can see in this photo.

I had left the honey super on the OV hive and the bees had plenty of frames nearly full with either capped honey or open cells of nectar so moved half into the Sasha hive. These added to the 4 frames of brood and honey they had started will position them nicely going into fall.

I moved the rest of the frames of nectar into the top box of the OV hive. That hive continues to be amazing! I'm confident now that the Sasha hive will be just as strong through the winter and looking forward to another split in the spring.

Tick 4 — Won a Ribbon!

Was blown away to see that our honey placed second at the county fair! It will be neat to get the scoring sheet to learn more about color class but the tag did have the moisture content at 16.5%, which was the lowest of the entries!

Well done OV hive! Simply outstanding!

Fall Inspection Today

Seems weird to say the word 'Fall' when its 80 degrees out but it's time to do a full inspection of the hives to ensure we're set up well to make it through the winter. The hives fared hurricane Irene just fine along with the rains from the left over storm that was hurricane Lee but then the east coast has been hit with days and days of more rain. No bees were flying! As a result, the OV hive, which didn't have a feeder on it, fed from their reserves of honey. The Sasha hive fared better because I've been feeding them all along.

The reports on the inspection:

OV HIVE................................................

The OV hive had nearly 4 frames of honey in the super but they are now down to 2 frames with very little honey on them. There is no honey whatsoever in the brood boxes. The hive is full of bees which, to my surprise, were really gentle. They're busy bringing in lots of pollen in white, yellow and orange with lots of waggle-dancing on the frames.

I'm really happy with the queen's brood pattern. Since there is not the usual honey in the corners of the frames, she filling those cells with brood. Most of the brood continues to be in the top two boxes but there is some in the bottom box, too.

I removed the queen excluder and put the top feeder on. Will now concentrate on building up their reserves for the winter.

SASHA HIVE...........................................

Sash II initially had me confused as she's much darker than I knew her to be... almost as dark as Sasha I. (I needed to compare photos once back in the house to make sure I wasn't seeing the old queen!) While Sasha II is certainly different looking you can see that her abdomen has thickened much more since she was last photographed.

The bees still have not yet drawn out the top box! As you can see, the population of the hive is really good but they are concentrated across two medium supers instead of three. The brood is good on a couple of frames and spotty on others because the bees have taken to storing nectar in those vacant cells. That concerns me so will plan to  move a couple of drawn frames from the honey super of the OV hive to the top box next week if the hive doesn't start working drawing out the top box.

As as aside, I'm going to enter some honey in the Charles County Fair next. Wish me, or rather the OV bees, luck!

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.

OV Queen Looking Wonderful This Morning

Spotted the OV Queen while doing my inspection as I hadn't really checked on them for 4 weeks or so, leaving them to do their honey thing. She's got a great brood pattern going on but you won't necessarily think so from the frame in this photo. This frame is in the top box and the empty cells have been filled with nectar.

Even though she was a surprise queen, she's doing great. The hive is just full of bees and there are currently 6 frames of honey nearly all capped. Looks like I'll have a nice honey harvest for my first year! :-)

I am feeling good about both hives and enjoyed my time with them this morning. As I was closing up the OV hive I spotted these two beautiful bright orange pieces of pollen and couldn't resist taking one last photo. All's well in the apiary today!

Brood Above the Queen Excluder

The OV hive queen didn't waste anytime sneaking through the queen excluder and into the honey super as evidenced by this photo taken last week.

Today those cells are empty, cleaned and starting to be used for honey.

The hive was sure feisty today and I wasn't planning to do a complete inspection but did manage to get stung in the kneecap.

Note to self: Don't work in the box you set on the ground. The guard bees are much closer to your knees at that point. :-)

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!