IPM

IPM - Integrated Pest Management, trying to keep them healthy and reduce Varroa Mite problem in hives.
I inspected the colony today and replaced the old bottom board with a screened bottom board that has an opening to add a board for cooler months and winter. As well it's designed to be put in place over a set period of time to count how many mites fall off the bees and this way I'll know if I have a big problem. I'll be adding medicated strips soon to combat the problem but a screen bottom board helps as the mites fall to the ground and don't make it back up into the hive. Needles to say today's inspection got the girls rather stressed out and at one point I decided to put on gloves to take the last super off and replace the bottom board, they were a little pissed, to put it politely. I took out one frame full of honey and moved a few around to see if I can get them to draw it out and make more. I didn't see the Queen today but did see early Larva stage and I thought I saw a couple of eggs, so she's there but hiding.

Screen bottom board.

Removable solid board.

Closing off the bottom.

Painted and a grid helps counting Mites.

The screened inner cover helps with ventilation.

A frame full of honey.

A little agitated to say the least.

The Bee Escape

What is the bee escape, well it isn't the name of a new Ford SUV, it lets the bees leave the honey super and helps prevent them from returning and consuming all the honey. It is used when the honey super is full and you want to harvest the honey, and that is hard to do when it's full of bees. This little board goes between the brood chamber and the honey super and in the evening the bees will go down the hole, make there way through to the end of the triangles and out into the brood chamber. It is only on there for 24 - 48 hours, any longer and they will figure out how to get back in. The space is only 3/8 inch wide as is the end at the end of the triangle and the wire is 1/8 inch (#8 gauge) squares. after that off comes the super, the escape board and another super put in place to make more honey. For us this won't happen until next year and maybe some in the spring.

The bee escape board.

Three small exits only.

A Little Ventilation

With the temperatures climbing into the 30's and feel like around 39° C and very humid it's very hard for the bees to cool down or even try to evaporate the nectar to aid in making honey with the inner cover mostly wood. There is another type of inner cover with screen material that I made to help them out with ventilation. As well I made a frame for the Queen excluder, the holes are too small for the Queen to get through and is used between the Brood chamber and the honey super to keep her from laying any eggs in the open cells. We won't use it this year as we want them to build up their numbers and they are already making honey for the winter. When I went and put on the new inner cover they were very active coming and going. I think this is a good sign. Last week the Provincial Chief Apiary Inspector stopped in to see our hive and all looks great. We meet him and his wife a while ago and they have been a great source of information and are very willing to share their knowledge.

Double screen inner cover.

Queen excluder.

The Girls are busy.

Looking In On The Girls

After a couple of weeks we thought it would be a good time to check up on the girls, it is very hot, 24 °C with a fell like temp of 29°C at 10:30 in the morning. The bees weren't to active, they were busy at the front of the hive, lined up pushing air in to help cool it down, and most of them were still home, not out getting more food. At least that is what it seemed. We didn't see the Queen this time but there were Larva in the new drawn out foundation and they cap the Larva at day 9 so we know she was still there, because it has been 18 days since our last inspection. At first I thought they filled the new super with honey like the previous one, but ReBecca thought it might be capped brood. I though honey because the capping's were yellow in color and ReBecca mentioned then it could be golden rod honey. When I scarped away some extra combs to clean things up a bit I looked and they were capped Pupa. This is great because the colony is growing like we wanted. Things are looking up.

Pushing air into the hive to cool it down.

Our new foundation, drawn out and filled with brood.

A broken cell with Pupa exposed, a small loss.

A large comb that gets in the way, needs to be cleaned up.

It left a little hole in the foundation, they'll fix it quickly.

Lots of bees, to hot for doing anything today.

Inspections

We have been keeping an eye on them a lot, we inspected them a few times to see if the Queen is there and on one of the inspections we saw eggs in the combs, which is a good thing because they are only in the egg stage for 3 days and this way we knew the Queen was there. We helped them along by feeding them a sugar water mix, two parts sugar to one part water, and they loved it. One day we added another super with new foundation and so they didn't have to work too hard to make wax we fed them more sugar water. As it turned out we fed them 6 times over the month for a total of 18 liters and as it turned out they drew the foundation out but with so much feed the make honey. It will stay there for them to have over winter. We put another super between the honey and the brood chamber, and will leave them alone for a while to give the time to build them out and hopefully let the Queen lay more eggs, building their numbers. During this last inspection we got to see the Queen and everything looked healthy, now time will tell.

Our Girls.

Looking good, brood hatching.

It's hard to see but the Queen is in the center of
the picture above half way.

The Queen in the center of the picture.

They Arrived

On June 25th we picked up our Nuc and brought them home, the drive wasn't a problem, when we picked them up it was at night and the entrance was blocked off with paper towel. Just after we started out ReBecca noticed a bee beside her at the window, so I opened it and out she went, after I did this I said " I hope that wasn't the Queen" knowing it wouldn't be as she really doesn't leave the hive after mating. No more escaped on the drive and when we got home we did find a few others loose but they remained around the hive. We already had the stand in place, we carried the Nuc to the stand, which is about 200 meters from the house across the field, were they'll get early morning sun shine and are out of the wind. They have access to water behind them in the woods and plenty of clover and natural flowers around them as we are in farm country.

The Nuc in place, a little sad looking, but it's a start.

Getting Ready For "The Girls"

This Blog has been a while coming and a lot has happened so I'll try to start from the beginning as we start on our Bee adventure. Last year we talked about getting into beekeeping, we attended a workshop and got a great exposure to beekeeping and we were hooked. Lots of reading and research over the winter and in the spring we ordered our first colony. They call this a Nuc, short for nucleolus of bees as it is just a queen with a few frames and about 15,000 bees to start off. And they'll build up their number over the summer and be strong enough to survive the winter, but I get ahead of myself. 

So before we ordered our Nuc, I decided that since I'm a woodworker I'll make our own hive and such, and with building bee hives for dummies in hand I started. I just had to make sure I maintained one simple rule, keep the "Bee Space" the same. If the spacing is too small they'll close it up with populous and if it's too big they'll build combs in this space and make it hard to move around or when taking out the frames damaging them. Everything went great, the hive body (super) was done, a bottom board, inner cover, outer cover and an entrance reduce were constructed. Now to make the frames to hold the foundation. The foundation in our case are plastic and have a honey coating to make it more appealing for the bees to work on. The foundation has honey comb pattern on it and this is were the bees will draw out the wax for either making a brood chamber, new bees, or for storing honey. with this first super done we were ready for our first Nuc and so we ordered "The Girls" as I call them. As we waited I thought it would be best to have more on hand and I make a couple of more medium supers and one small one. All our super are 8 frame boxes, we could have made them 10 frame but we thought it would be better with 8, it can get heavy when filled with honey.  So we waited for the call to pick them up.

First part of our hive.

A jug to make the frames.

Three supers on the stand.

Add a little color for protection.