RIP Queen Anna

May 19 2017
Note to self:
I need to check  Hive 2,  They don't seen to be as robust as they should be. All the other hives are busy with lots of bees coming  and going. Hive 2 were going through the motions but didn't seem as active as I thought they should be. I had noticed some very dark old dead bees outside the entrance so I decided tomorrow I would check it out.
May 20
So once my chores were done, I geared up and went out to do an inspection. I looked in the top box and found lots of pollen and a fair amount of nectar...that's good. However I found no brood in the top box but that was not unusual for this time of year. Once that box was done, I moved into the lower box. I found no brood.....I was sick. No brood = No queen.
I removed the bottom box and found lots of dead bees, some had been there for quite some time and the others were fairly new. Queen Anna must of been in there with the other dead.  I suddenly went in to rescue mode. I threw aside the bottom board and grabbed a fresh on, then placed the frames into a new brood box, then I opened the hive next to it and searched it until I found some capped and uncapped brood and robbed that and placed it in the lower box. I closed it up and hoped for the best.
May 21
I had decided to go in search of at least one more frame of brood, so I went into Hive 1 and robbed one from there. In about a week I should be able to see a queen cell starting so would check back then
June 1
Barb came over and we decided to check in the hive to see if we could see a queen cell. As we were looking through the hive we noticed most all the brood had hatched. But we found no queen cell. Once again we took a few more frames of brood from Hive 1 and hoped for the best. We noticed though, that hive 1 is doing awesome...they are a crazy hive, tons of bees, tons of brood and tons of attitude!  Love that hive.
June 5
 Checked in and found no sign at all of the bees in Hive 2 making a new queen. So after some discussion it was decided we were going to combine the bees with our little swarm hive (Hive 4) So before dark we went out there while most of the bees were inside, we removed the inside cover of Hive 4 and laid down 2 layers of newspaper then placed on top of that, the 2 boxes from the hive who lost their queen. We put the lids on and that was it. In a couple days the bees will have chewed through the newspaper and they will become one hive. I am told doing it this way, it gives the bees with no queen time to accept their new queen.
June 8
I can only assume the bees are all together now, today I noticed way more action than there had been. Next week we will go in and remove some of the boxes and frames and get them moved down into 2 brood boxes.  At that point we will decide if we will do a split later. I'm thinking it can wait til next year but we will see. I'm just glad we could save this hive.

Notice the newspaper still in place, this will be removed once we condense the bees into a couple boxes. The top 2 boxes was the hive who lost Queen Anna

Getting down to business

May 6 2017

Judging by the temperature outside its hard to believe its May. While having my morning coffee I looked out so see what the thermometer said. It was a balmy 5C. So  I got up and turned on the furnace.
Barb and I had decided today we would try out my new toy. Yes I took the plunge and bought a Varrox Vaporizer to treat Varroa mites.

 

I had read up quite a few articles and talked to fellow beekeepers to the point I am sure they thought I was a real dim wit. Why is making a decision on how best to treat Mites so difficult. I can't seem to get it thru my head, when the right time is, can I treat with the honey left on, can I treat when there is brood, so on and so on.

So after much discussions  I decided to purchase a vaporizer. I never plan on having tons of hives but do want to expand out to maybe 10 once retired. I wanted something easy and fairly quick (and inexpensive) and this was the way to go. After the initial purchase of 200.00, the acid is cheap. A 6.00 container of Oxalic Acid will treat 80 colonies!

Anyways, after watching all the You Tube videos and reading the instructions numerous times I was pretty darn confident I knew what to do. This was going to be easy and we would have it done in no time.

So armed with the vaporizer, a respirator, towels and small bucket of water, we marched out there. James had brought a battery out for us to hook the vaporizer too, as its 12V. We went over the plan and set to work. We waited for the vapors to come out of the hive...its suppose to take 2 1/2 minutes. Nothing. I reset the clamps on the battery and tried again. Nothing. Stupid battery must be dead. So went in the house and asked James to bring another one. Battery 2. Dead. So he brought the truck over and we preceded to use it. It worked great. James came out and moved the truck. We continued on to treat the 3rd hive, I pulled out the vaporizer while Barb covered the entrance with a towel. I dipped it into the bucket of water to cool it down and was about to add the acid when I realize it was still hot, so I plunged it into the cool water again and again. Oh ooops I forgot to unplug it. As I turned I realized the truck was parked in a way that you couldn't get out of the bee yard. We were trapped in the fenced enclosure. Now what to do. What a gong show. Yelling was certainly not going to work, but thankfully Barb had her phone so she called James who was in the Motel.

After what should of taken maybe a half an hour...took us, what felt like hours. Anyways, its all done for now. In another week we start again.

Is it spring yet (again i ask)

Man...its been chilly. However the bees have been flying and collecting pollen now since the 8th of April. The last few days they have working really hard, bringing in bright yellow and a little orange pollen. We don't have any flowers out yet so I can only assume its mostly tree pollen. The willows and some cottonwoods mostly.
Today the sun came out and the wind was quite calm so Barb suggested we take a peak inside and really check out their food stores.
I had only glanced at one frame in a couple hives and didn't see much honey so last week I had put in feeders of syrup in all the hives.
So we started with the big bad hive (hive 1) It was tough removing the frames...they were glued down well. But we did manage to get several out and we found honey, so was very happy. I did put in a full frame of honey I had saved from last fall to give them a little more since its the biggest colony.
We saw lots of bees and lots of pollen being stored. They had emptied the syrup bottle and we noticed "nectar" in some cells. What the heck, then decided they were probably storing the syrup. So we closed that up and preceeded to hive 2. Everything looked good in there, lots of honey. When we removed some of the frames from hive 3, we found a really big area of capped pollen and some uncapped brood. Wow brood in the second box. The queen must of gone on a walk about. Hive 4 was all good in there too.
So we were happy that they all have enough honey left until the flowers start blooming. I was happy that we know that the queen is laying in hive 3 and can only assume that all the queens are laying now.
Anyways, all going well, the warmer weather will keep up and spring has arrived. In a week or two we should be able to remove the winter wraps. Then we will have to get ready for swarm season by having a box ready incase.
But for now....we wait.+

Ooops

March 22 2017
Had a busy morning, so didn't get out to check on the girls til about 2pm. Lots of activity outside of all but one hive. There was no sign of any life in front of  Hive 3. We had seen life last week, so what happened?
It was quite warm out so I decided around 3, I would go put pollen patties out in a couple of the hives today and do the other 2 tomorrow.
Since there had been no activity in front of Hive 3 it was first. I removed the winter roof, cover, attic box and inside cover and low and behold, there they were. They were feasting on the stored honey. All happy and content. Guess they would rather stay indoors then come out.  Weird.
So I put in a pollen patty and closed it back up. I completed the next hive (hive 4) also. And while adjusting the Styrofoam back around the hive bodies, I noticed that it had slipped down a bit and covered off the entrance of hive 3. Guess the wind must of moved it and blocked their door way, hence why they hadn't been outside for a few days.
I was so happy an hour later when I wandered over to see them again and they were all outside. Judging by the poop on my gloves and coat....they must of really had to go

March 14 2017
Well the winter is finally giving us a bit of a break. The mercury is above 0 now and today the bees were all out flying. It was great seeing all 4 hives made it through the long cold winter. I decided since it was mild this morning when we first got up, it might be a good day to see bees.
So I wandered out around noon. There was evidence of major housecleaning in hive #1. Lots of dead bees on the front porch, so I decided to pop off the entrance reducer and sweep out  the bottom board.
They instantly reminded me why I call them the cranky hive. Then I did the same to hive 2. I was kneeling on the ground and I guess one of the girls crawed up my boot and up my pant let. So my first sting of 2017 happened today.
I felt awful since these girls fought to survive the winter and had to die getting pinched in my pant leg.
Later this afternoon I wandered out several more time to watch them, and on the 3rd trip out, hive 4 (aka the swarm hive) was out flying. Yeah 3 out of 4.
About an hour ago I wandered out once again, this time lots of activity in front of hive 3 (aka the Nuc) So I feel pretty good.
So now to wait until it warms up so I can look inside and check the queens. But that will have to wait a few more weeks I think. As the weather is so unstable right now.
Anyways that's it for now.

Honey garlic pork ribs

Is there anything better than gooey sticky ribs. I don't think so. Here's a recipe that is both those things. And if you can make it with your own honey...that makes it even better.
Here is the recipe:

4 pounds of pork ribs
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup brown sugar
3 tablespoon soya sauce
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon grown ginger
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard

Cut the ribs into whatever length you like, I normally cut them about 4 bones long. Then place all the ingredients into a large ziplok bag then add place ribs. Close the bag and mush the marinade all over the ribs, then put in the fridge overnight or at least a few hours.
Drain and reserve the sauce and place back into the fridge. Place the ribs on a greased baking pan.
Cover and bake at 350 degrees for about 1 1/2 hours
Pour the reserved sauce over the ribs and leave uncovered and bake for about 45 more minutes. Hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

Sorry I forgot to take a picture of them,

Is it spring yet?

Well we are barely half way thru January and I am itching to get started working with the bees again. But we are still months away. All I can do is prepare for spring by reading all I can on beekeeping.
I got thinking about feeding the bees first thing in the spring. Its important to give them Pollen Patties, whether it's real pollen or a pollen substitute. This helps stimulate the queen into start laying and gives them a jump start since its going to be another month or so yet until there is any pollen out there naturally.
Last year I decided to try making my own patties. I found a recipe and gave it a try. They turned out good.
Here is the recipe I used:

1 1/2 cups of soy flour

1 1/2 cups of white sugar

1/2 cup brewers yeast

1 1/2 cup sugar syrup (either 2:1 or 1:1) of you can use honey instead. I used the honey since I had some.

Mix the dry ingredients well, then add the syrup or honey. Mix until its almost like cookie dough. You may have to add a little more flour. Leave in a covered bowl over night.The next morning, put the dough on a piece of wax paper and cover with another sheet and roll out into a patty. You can either freeze it until you need it, or place it on top of the frames in the brood chamber.

Another alternative is to buy Bee Pro from Bee Maid Bee store and just mix it with a sugar syrup.
It really is a small price to pay to get your bees off to a good start in the spring.