Look!

This weekend it was warm enough that the bees were out and about!  We are keeping our fingers crossed that they can make it another month.  I am so ready for spring!

Dead Bees

All of these dead bees appeared on top of the melting snow in the past day.

We figured our bees wouldn't make it through this crazy winter.  But all these dead bees are actually a good sign.  On a warmer day like today the bees will start to clean out the hive including removing the dead.  If the hive hadn't survived there would be no bees outside we would find them all in the hive.  This means there are at least a few kicking around inside and they might make it through the winter.

Bees

Today I went into the hive just to check in and add on the third brood box.  The bees have drawn out all the comb in the two boxes and it seems all is going well.

 I saw brood and eggs.  This is a frame filled with eggs.  They are VERY hard to see.  I circled one of the eggs with a red circle and you will probably have to click on the picture to make it larger in order to see it.

Long Live The Queen

Meet our new queen.  I jokingly mentioned that she could be from Africa since she is so much darker than our other queens.  We have named our past queens and we still needed to name this one.  My sister thought it would be funny based on my comment if we gave her an African name since our last two have had proper English queen names.  Andy thought this was a great idea and somehow I got roped into letting him name her.  So meet Queen Tigress Euphrates, yes, that really is her name.

When installing the queen you normally take off the cork on one end of the cage to expose the sugar candy so that the bees will eat through the candy and release her within the hive.  This queen cage did not have sugar candy and I wasn't about to release her to fly off into the unknown.  So I installed the bees and her queen cage how I know how to without removing the cork.

I then called a beekeeper who I picked up the bees from to ask about what I should do.  He suggested that I remove the cork, quickly cover the hole with my finger and then shove a mini marshmallow in to act like the sugar candy would.  So Sunday I went back into the hive to do this.  Hopefully it works I will find out tomorrow when I got back in to retrieve the queen cage.

California Ladies

Our bees arrived today after their long trip from California.  This year we decided to try Carniolan bees from California instead of the Italian bees out of Georgia that we have had the past few years.

The type of bee to get is a personal choice.  Carniolan bees supposedly overwinter better because they will slow down on rearing brood when the honey flow slows down.  This means they don't have a large, hungry population to feed all winter.  But this means they don't make as much honey and I have heard they propolis like crazy.  There are plus and minuses for both types of honey bee.  For us our bees have died the past two winters and we figured we wanted to try something different.

 This lady rode along side me on the way home.

 The queen is almost black which was surprising since the Italian queens are very light colored.

 Shaking the bees out causes a lot of them to become airborne.

 The hive looks so little with just two supers.

Garden Progress

Life has been busy.  I have made time for gardening in between responsibilities but there has not been time for blogging.  A lot has happened since the last post and here is a quick recap.

 The final beds in the garden were amended after I cleared all the weeds out.

 A second succession of peas were planted.  Swiss chard, parsnips, cosmos, zinnias, dill and cilantro seed were all planted.  I'm a little late on some of these things but better late than never.

 An unimpressive 4 of 16 asparagus plants came up.  They are about the height of a pencil but incredibly skinnier.  It's about time I realize I do not have a good site for asparagus.  I will try them again when we eventually move.

 It's been fun watching volunteer seedlings pop up from plants that went to seed last year, like this little dill.

This is why I need to get an indoor light system going.  My windowsill is bulging with seedlings started inside and they are growing leggy from trying to reach towards the sky.  Most of these are in the process of being hardened off outside right now.  The seedlings consist of basil, Fantasia and Music Box sunflowers, dianthus, and snapdragons.

This past weekend a bunch of work was done and I will post about it soon.  We also have a big week ahead.  I plan on changing some plants in our landscaping, mulching, finishing plantings for the summer garden and our new bees are coming.  We ordered Carniolan bees from California this year instead of the Italian bees from Georgia we have gotten the past two years.

Cleaning Out the Hive

Since our hive is empty it is time to work on cleaning it out.  I spent a few hours this past weekend cutting out the dark comb and scraping off propolis.  The dark comb like below needs to be changed out to keep the hive healthy.  

A few of the frames still look light enough to keep in the hive and will help give the new package a head start not having to building out comb in the entire hive.

Scraping the propolis off will help me get into the hive easier until the new bees propolis the hive again since the bees use propolis to glue the hive together.

Before scraping

 After scraping

I only got through 2 of the 3 boxes because it took over 2 hours and my hands were starting to hurt.  I will get to the third box hopefully next weekend.

Mistaken

With my rush to get garden work done I also wanted to get into the hive to check on the ladies and give them some food if need be.  When I got inside I found a dead hive.  We were mistaken that the hive might be alive, it must have been other nearby bees robbing our dead hive of it's honey that we mistook for life from within our hive.

It was really disappointing to find this.  I had hoped that the activity we saw outside the hive was the signs of success, but it wasn't.  I tested a few frames by sticking a toothpick into the remnants of the honeycomb cells.  Thankfully I did not find goopy, rope like strands when I pulled the toothpicks out, a sure sign of American Foul Brood.  Instead it seems that everything left behind is old packed pollen.

Empty hive bodies on the lawn is not a welcome sight to a beekeeper.  The honey supers still looked good but all of the brood chambers looked dark and dirty.  So I am going to strip out all the comb and foundation, scrap and scrub them clean and then pop in new foundation.

Below you can see a dark spot that does not look like a bee (or the dead wasp you also see that got into our hive) is a small hive beetle.  I saw at least five on the screened bottom board.  The small hive beetle is one of the newer pests that plague honey bees.  They could have definitely contributed to the death of our hive.  It might be time to rethink some of our hive management procedures.

Bee School

Over the weekend we attended a bee school/conference for the 3rd year in a row.  We always enjoy this day because it gets us excited for the upcoming bee season.  We get to share stories and tap into other's knowledge.  There are also vendors selling all sorts of beekeeping books and tools.  This year we finally invested in a full beekeeping suit.  We bought one that will make sure to fit both of us and I feel like a huge marshmallow in it but I won't be worried about a bee finding an opening in my clothing.

Overwintered Hive?

Could it be that we actually overwintered a hive, even without medicating or really trying?  On Sunday when the temps hit over 60 degrees I was surprised by the amount of activity that was coming in and out of the hive.  I thought they might have died but Andy was convinced they were still alive.  It looks like he is right or there are a lot of bees robbing our hive of it's honey.  We definitely need to get in there asap and find out what is going on.

Warm Winter Weather

Last weekend it was quite warm.  Warm enough for the daffodils to make their appearance.

It was also warm enough that the bees came out of the hive.  We were excited to see signs of life but it's obvious the hive is weak because a strong hive would have had much more activity.

Too Warm

It is too warm for December.  My hydrangeas think it's time to start blooming.

It's also so warm that the bees are out and about.

I'm really wanting snow and a proper winter this year!