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On Sunday I inspected both of my colonies. It was cloudy out, and 74 degrees F. I inspected both of them right before a thunderstorm, not the best time to inspect a colony of bees! But they were both relatively calm, and I received no stings! I took a TON of pictures of Hive Anne, you will see all 10 frames below. They have been doing a lot better, they are building more comb more quickly. After staying of 7 frames of comb for the past 11 weeks, they now have 9 frames with comb! Six of them are filled from top to bottom with comb, three of them are either 1/2 way filled or barely started and the tenth one is empty, but hopefully to be filled soon. So it seems that more hours in the sun can help with nosema! I am a bit worried about the queen. It seems to me that the brood is very spotty[pictures below], but perhaps Anne is still recovering. I will let the bees be! If they think they need a new queen, so be it! These honeybees have lived for thousands of years without the intervention of man, so why are they so suddenly dependent on us to provide them with excellent queens? I want my bees to survive in mother nature’s way, not in man’s way. And I will let them bee.
I have started to feed my bees, Bella has been sucking it all down so fast that I can’t seem to keep up with them! Anne is taking their time, I think because they already have some stores. I also came up with a great way to feed bees without punching holes in lids or having dead, drowned bees. Just get a bag of cheap plastic beads and float them on top of the syrup. Ta-da!
Here are some pictures of queen cells, the queen herself, brood, crazy comb and many other things. In the dark picture, if you click it to enlarge it and look closely, you will see the queen towards the bottom of the frame. Enjoy!
This is Hive Anne right now. This picture was taken in the morning. The colony is currently on 7 frames of comb in the white box. I built the medium long hive that is underneath it [the green box]. I was hoping that they would get crowded in the deep, and then move down into the long hive. But no, Anne still hasn’t grown after 9 weeks being there! So what I did today, was lift the colony up and off the long hive, and placed it on a bottom board. I replaced the top entrance/cover with an inner cover and outer cover. The bees were confused that there was no top entrance anymore, but once the fanning started, the girls started marching into the bottom entrance one by one. Then at night, I snuck out and got a piece of foam and put it in the entrance, so no bees would leave to forage tomorrow morning. Then tomorrow morning I’m going to move it and cover the entrance with branches to get the bees to reorient themselves, then quickly take foam off and make a run for it. The girls might be a bit angry about the move.
Hive Bella
This is Hive Bella. This hive is doing great, it just needs some pollen and sugar syrup, for they have no stores. I hope to check in on them tomorrow, after ‘the move’. I will need to make some sugar syrup and order some pollen patties from BetterBee soon. The little blue thing you see sticking out is the top bar holder. It hold the bar with comb so I can closely observe it with my hands free. Or snap a picture of it. But I have this unusual habit of forgetting the camera whenever it’s time to inspect one of the hives. I will try to take pictures tomorrow… but I cannot promise anything!
I hope that ‘the move’ is successful, and chases away the nosema bug. And I hope that Bella won’t catch the bug! Have a good night all!
I believe that Hive Anne has nosema. Nosema is a quiet killer and it infects the digestive system of honeybees. It’s spread from bee to bee by spores, and it limits the ability of bees to digest food. Once a hive has Nosema, the workers replace the infected queen within 3 weeks. I do remember seeing around 10 queen cells last month. Some symptoms are: bees build up slowly and bees appear weak and may shiver and crawl aimlessly around the from of the hive. I know that Hive Anne has built up very slowly, but I have not seen weak, crawling bees in front of the hive. Hive sites that have damp, cold conditions can encourage nosema. Hive Anne is located with early morning sun, and shade all afternoon and evening. It’s damp too. I do not want to treat the hive, because I want to stay away from chemicals. So for now I will move the hive to higher ground, that is less damp and more sunny. It has full sun probably from about 8am to 6pm. I’m not exactly sure, but I will check to see how long the sun is on them for. I am a bit worried that it’s too much sun for them, and that it would cause comb collapse, so I may put some large plants/bushes around it to give it some shade. I’m going to move it either today or tomorrow. I hope that the bees to weather nosema off. We shall see!
