Muggy, Uncomfortable Inspection

I was finally able to inspect the hives containing the Minnesota Hygienic honey bees Monday afternoon. The two days before were too rainy to inspect. Today, on the other hand, was bright, sunny, hot(low 90s)and humid. The bees seemed as uncomfortable as I was, as they were bearding and "washboarding" in front of both Metpropolis and Bee Glad...

Bee Glad..., a langstroth hive, has three boxes on now and the bees have started work, in earnest, in the third box. Two frames in the top box had newly laid eggs on them and 7 out of the ten frames in the hive were being drawn on. The second box was fine as well although, again, the honey bees do not seem to take to the green drone frame as well as I'd like. The other plastic frames are being worked quite well however.

I had to add three bars to Metpropolis, the top bar hive. This hive is booming! Plenty of brood (in all stages of development), pollen and honey. I took one bar of capped drone brood out of this hive in my effort to control the mite population, although, so far, my sticky board inspections show no mites in any of the hives.

I received no stings during this inspection but that did not keep me from ultimately getting stung today. I brought Monta out to see all the bees bearding in front of Bee Glad... and carried a hitch hiking worker in the house with me. I went to scratch my back while walking through the living room of our house and WHAM!!!! I received a nice sting in the "webbing" between the thumb and pointer of my right hand. The cats were thoroughly amused.

Catching Up With the Blog

I started the semester last week and that fact has taken my attention away from keeping up with my blog.  The following are a few notes I have been meaning to write about:

I did some mite testing a week and a half ago and the count just skyrocketed over previous weeks. I recognized that this was not a good situation to go into fall and winter with so I did treat, very reluctantly, with Apiguard, a Thymol-based miticide. I hate being put on the pesticide treadmill and the bees did not like it as well. There is not really much written about the bees initial reaction to thymol use, but, between the 90 degree temperature and the Apiguard, both hives got an extreme case of bearding that scared me a bit. 

The temperatures plummetted this week, so the bees are much less active right now. I am observing them closely.

Final Weekly Inspection of the Season

Sunday was my last weekly inspection of Bee Glad.... Other maintenance will be done before the winter wrap but weekly inspections of individual frames is done with.

The temperature was in the mid- 70s on Sunday with full sun and a slight breeze. The colder temperatures were noticed by the bees of course -- no "bearding" on the front of the hive. The bees were bringing in bright yellow-orange pollen.

The bees in Bee Glad... were again very defensive, so I only did the minimum. Most of the frames in the top deep (one of three) were filled with capped honey primarily. (A real heavy box!) The middle box was mixed half and half with honey and brood. The bees still don't like working the green drone frame in the middle deep. If given a choice between foundationless and plastic, they seem to choose foundationless. These bees are heavy propolis makers. The queen seems to be slowing in her egg-laying.

As I mentioned, the bees were quite defensive, flying at my veiled face, and stinging my ungloved hands. (I received six stings in my brief inspection.)

Sometime this week I will also do my final weekly inspection of Metpropolis, and go back and review my Beekeeping in Northern Climates manual to plan out my September and October tasks.

This winter I will plan out any apiary expansion and continue to research and write professionally in the area of environmental sociology. My chief difficulty will be time. School started today so I will have to switch into my professorial mode as well. It should be a busy school year.

Bearding on Metpropolis

Wednesday and Thursday we had some pretty severe thunderstorms with high winds, rain and the usual lightening and thunder. The hives got through it fairly well except that on Friday night there was a great deal of bearding at the entrances of Metpropolis, the top bar hive. My initial reaction was to panic, "Ah, they are about to swarm!". Instead, I did some research, ending up at one of my more reliable sources of bee information: Michael Bush's website. Michael's site reassured me that the bearding was not necessarily a sign of swarming, and that, in any case, it did indicate that Metpropolis was a strong hive. I took his suggestions and increased ventilation that evening by removing the bottom board. Saturday morning I checked inside the hive to see if the bees had enough space and if there were any queen cells. No queen cells were found and I added one bar to the hive. By this morning (Sunday), the bearding had stopped. Next time, I will not panic.