Tuesday July 26, 2011

All three hives are going strong.
Hive one has some comb to build in both honey supers so the yield from this hive may be low.
Hive two is still going great and they have made good progress on the comb building and they have brought in a lot of nectar.
We dug down into the bottom honey super just to check things out and I came across some bad comb just above the top brood super. There was a big hole in the wax in one of the frames, some sidewise comb on a few of the frames and a few drone eggs were deposited on the bottom of a few of the frames. I am not sure why the bees do this occasionally but when this happens it is sometimes hard to fit the frames into the extractor and if the wax breaks while spinning it’s a mess. I moved this box to the top of the hive and I will go in later this week and replace those frames with ones with better comb.
One of the frames with the weird comb had a pure wax foundation (no plastic) so this can be cut up and put in boxes for people who like honey in the comb. Or I can throw it the melter (along with the capping) at the end of the season and use it for canning or cooking.
Hive 3 weighed in at 250 Lbs! which is 34 lbs. of nectar/pollen in nine days! It looked healthy and they had produced a fair amount of wax and nectar in the new super from last week.

Sunday July 17, 2011

Ted and I went into the hives today to take inventory and to make a few changes. One thing that can be done to reduce a mite population is to install a screen bottom board. In theory, the mites can pass through the screen and then they can’t climb back into the hive. I am not sure how affective this is but, it’s minimally invasive and does not use any chemicals or drugs. There are several mite medications that can be applied but I can’t use them during the honey flow or else they can end up in the honey.
We dissembled each hive down to the hive stand and replaced all of the bottom boards with the screen version. These were purchased for about $10.00 each from Sidney General Store which sells bee keeping supplies. Who knew?
We also took out one empty medium honey super for each hive just in case they were ready for more storage room for this year’s crop.
Each honey super has nine frames but, Ted and I had disassembled three of the frames in each super and replaced the old dark comb with plastic foundation. This forces the bees to produce fresh comb which takes longer to fill and is more work for the bees, but is healthier for the hive in the long run. The old comb was thrown into the wax melter for candles and whatnot.
Hive 1 is still lagging some, but we put the second box on any way. This hive still has the queen excluder because the first box is not entirely full and I did not want the queen to pass through into the honey supers.
Hive 2 is going great so we put the fourth honey super on it. There is honey throughout the three boxes already installed but not all of it is capped.
Hive 3 is also strong but not as strong as hive 2. It weighed in at 206 lbs so it is up 14 lbs from last week. We put the empty super on it which added an additional 10 lbs for a total weight of 116 lbs.
Not all of the hives were actually ready for the extra supers that we installed but I took into consideration the fact that the whole field is covered with spotted Knapp weed that is just about to come into bloom.
Spotted Knapp weed is an invasive plant species that is considered a pest but it seems to produce good nectar. Last year the majority of my honey crop was brought in from spotted Knapp weed so I figured that in the next week or so there would be plenty of available nectar and all of the hives have the work force to bring it in.

July 10, 2011

There was good and bad news today. Hive number one is growing the slowest. When I checked the brood chamber I happened to see a varroa mite crawling around on some capped brood. (See picture at left, actual size is about the size of a pinhead.) This could be an infestation and may be the reason that this hive seems to be lagging behind the other two. I still have not put a second honey super on this hive. They even have a few frames in the top honey super that do not have the comb fully drawn out. They are somewhat behind; I may need to look into some varroa mite reduction procedures.
Hive number two had made excellent progress into the second super so they were actually ready for a third honey super. This is the strongest of the three hives. I saw lots of healthy brood so it looks as though its queen right and the honey is flowing in good.
Hive number three is not as strong as hive number two but they were ready for a second honey super. Just like before, when I placed the second honey super on top of hive number three, I also removed the queen excluder. So hive three is doing good with two honey supers and no queen excluder and weighed in at a whopping 182 pounds. This is a total of 37 pounds since three weeks ago when the photos were taken. Adding the second empty super added an additional 10 pounds of wood and wax so the total weight of the hive at this point is 192 pounds. I would like to know what hive number two weighs but I only have one scale. It looks like we will get a few pounds of honey this year especially if this honey flow keeps up.

Friday, July 1, 2011

I made a quick visit to the hives and installed an additional honey super on hive number two. So, as of the he beginning of July, hives one and three had one honey super each and a queen excluder. Hive number two had two honey supers and I had removed the queen excluder because the queen won’t pass through a full super to lay eggs, so I didn’t have to worry about her getting eggs and larva into the honey stores that I plan to remove. Not many people like larva and pupa on their toast I’m told.

Friday, June 24, 2011

Ted and I went in again and noticed that hive number two had made pretty good progress in filling up the top honey super. Since I was leaving town for the first week of July I wanted to get an additional honey super on that hive.

Friday, June 17, 2011

I went into the hives with Ted Nelson and some of his family members. We took a few pictures and a short movie clip to show some hive activity. As shown, hive number three is weighing in at about 134 pounds. All three hives showed good activity and as you can see from the photos there was a lot of capped brood so all the hives appear to be queen right. (That means each hive has a viable queen)

New Hive Pics! 6/17/2011

Friday, May 27

My dad (Herb) and I went out to the hives for a quick observation of hive activity. It has been rainy all week and not good weather for foraging I’m afraid. Hive number 3 weighed in at 123 lbs. that’s up 2lbs from last week. The spring flow is in full force but like last year it’s been too wet for the bees to take full advantage of it.

 Shelly Haus-Springborn has informed me that “Savanna” is indeed spelled without an H. However, when Terry Smith looked on the campus trail maps it was spelled with an H. The wooden sign at the trail head has it spelled without an H which is why the blog was originally titled the “Savanna Loop Bee Hives”.  I’m not changing it again until I hear from “the Nerd” Gov. Snyder.

Friday, June 4, 2011

Ted Nelson and I went into all three hives today. Hive #3 weighed in at 126 lbs. up three more pounds. Not a lot. Once again, all three hives were in about the same shape. Almost no activity in the honey super which is to be expected with so little honey flow. However the queens have been busy! We found a lot of capped brood. Several whole frames in the brood section of each hive that were almost completely full of straw colored capped brood cells on both sides. When these hatch out the hive populations are going to explode. There was also some capped drone cells, but not a lot. This is good. My dad (Herb) says…

 “Drone bees just sit around all day reading the paper while the females do all the work, just like people. So you don’t want too many of them around. They do cruise around in the queen corridor in case a virgin queen is on the prowl. “

Some of the first offspring of the carniolan queen have hatched. These bees are darker and do not have the three distinct bands that the three striped Italian bees have. As the summer wears on the Italian bees will eventually be replaced by the offspring of the queen and the hive will be completely populated by the darker carniolan bees. Only a small percentage of the hive appears to be from the queen at this point.

Ted and I switched the bottom two supers which put the queens and the majority of the workers closer to the bottom of the hive. This puts the mostly empty top brood super above the queen as she tends to lay eggs going up. I didn’t want her running into the queen excluder and making the assumption that she is at the top of the hive. The queen may stop laying eggs if she thinks the hive is full.  We’ll see if she works her way back up in the coming weeks.  

Friday,May 20

Ted Nelson (Criminal Justice teacher-MACC) and I went into the hives today to see if the bees had made any progress. The weather has been rainy in the past few weeks so sunny foraging days have been scarce. All three hives were in about the same condition so I will just describe what we saw once. The first thing I noticed was that the slider bar on the feed scale was still floating! This means that hive number three has not gained or lost a single pound. I was hoping that the bees had increased the weight at least a little.

However, we did find larvae and capped brood in all three hives which means the Carniolan queens are out and laying eggs. We also stumbled across the queen in hive number one, surrounded by a gaggle of workers.

In all three hives, the queen was somewhere near the top. I think with hind site, I should have reversed the order of the bottom two brood supers in order to move the queens into the lower section. Maybe we will do that next week.

So the hives looked healthy. I’ll check in on them next week and hopefully the weather will warm up before the spring nectar flow ends.

Monday, May 9^th

Today we introduced the bees to the hive!  I purchased 3-3 lb. packages of Italian bees with Carniolan queens.  As the queen lays eggs, her offspring will gradually replace the Italian bees.  Three or four weeks from now, the entire hive should consist of offspring of the Carniolan queens.  I also put a feeder on each hive with a 50/50 mix of sugar water, 3 tsp. of fumidil and some “Honey Bee Healthy”.  (Essential oils with trace vitamins for improved bee health) 

Thursday, May 12^th

I removed the feeders from the hives today in preparation for installing the honey supers.  I didn’t want any fumidil or any “Honey Bee Healthy” collected by the bees to be in the honey supers. 

Friday, May 13^th

Today is commencement at the college and I squeezed in a quick bee hive visit before the evening ceremony.  I installed empty honey supers on each hive.  Each super had nine frames and had been used previously, so the foundation was completely covered with drawn comb. (Complete wax cells are formed so the bees can just fill them with honey without having to make as much wax)  Hive #3 (on the scale) complete with empty honey supers weighed in at 121 lbs. 

The Savannah Loop Bee Hives

Prologue

There are a couple of reasons I wanted to move my bees to the MCC campus:

Number one, it looks like the farm land across the street from my residence is being prepared for potatoes. Lots of agriculture is hard on bees but potato farming is especially hard because of the amount of insecticide that is used to combat the potato bugs. And if you couple this with the fact that potatoes have a flower that attracts the bees this is an especially bad combination.

Number 2, I like teaching and I thought this would be a great opportunity to allow people to view the hives from a safe distance and keep up with their progress throughout the summer on the blog.

Thursday May 5

Today I brought out the eight foot pallet and two of the three hives that had died over the winter. I set up the hive stands, the bottom boards, two deep brood supers per hive, an inner cover and an outer cover.  

Friday May 6

Today I set up the third hive exactly like the first two except I set this one up on a reconditioned antique feed scale so that I can track the honey flow this summer.  By periodically weighing the hive, and tracking it's weight, we can determine when the flow of nectar peaks and ebbs.  I will also weigh the hive at the end of the season to see how may pounds of honey the bees have produced.