Queenless, continued

Looks like Black Rock killed their second new queen. So when I inspected Oceanic815 (the new package hive that swarmed) after their swarm, to remove extra swarm/queen cells (Leaving one), I moved one frame that had brood, eggs, and a nice queen cell into the queenless Black Rock hive.

Swarm Capture

The third and final cluster was close to the ground

New raised beds

We were outside building new raised beds for a vegetable garden in the front yard. The hives are close to the new raised beds so we were aware of the hives being lively on a warm sunny day. One of the hives (Oceanic815), the new 4 pound package installed this spring, became busier and busier around 1:30pm. We realized they were swarming. What an amazing thing to watch. The air filled with bees, flying around and around, and you could see the gathering moving as a whole, edging closer to the holly tree which is about 30 feet from their hive. 
They settled high in the holly tree. It turns out holly is not the easiest tree to remove a swarm from.
Gavin climbed up a ladder with hand pruners (no safety gear) while I stood on the ground with a cardboard box at the ready, in full beekeeping geek attire. He clipped the branches and placed the swarm into the box. By then many bees had dropped or flew off. So they began to congregate again below where the first cluster was. We let them gather a bit and repeated the process. Gavin only got 2 stings.
We let the remaining bees settle again and this time the cluster was within arm's reach of the ground, in the same holly tree.
The final group of bees was much easier to capture.

The swarm settled in the holly tree

 Then a trip down to Beez Neez Apiary Supply to purchase a new hive. I had originally intended to get a nuc box to have ready for this kind of occasion but Jim at Beez Neez said my swarm was too big, nuc boxes are really for splits. So I ended up buying parts for a new hive (#4!). While they were being painted we set up a temporary hive, which was an extra deep brood box I have ready for my new split hive, a make-shift bottom Gavin constructed for me, and a piece of plywood for a top. And a feeder I'm not using on the other hives. Works great.

Mmmm... topsoil

So back to gardening! These raised beds we built out of discarded Trex (plastic decking material). We purchased topsoil for the 3 in the lower yard since the soil there is very shallow, and amended the soil with commercial steer manure. We are going to plant our sun-lovingest plants down here. Tomatoes, squashes, cucumbers, basil. I have rarely had much luck with tomatoes, and I have high hopes for this new location with the raised beds.

 

Queenless

Still no sign of a queen in the new split hive (The Black Rock). No eggs, no new larvae. They must have killed her. So I installed a new queen. The smoker wasn't working very well, damp fuel. So we decided to try it without smoke. Big mistake. They were not happy, charging us. I got stung and couldn't brush her off since I was holding a frame full of bees (she had pinched between a fold in my bee suit right against my wrist) so she gave me a full dose before Gavin could get to her to brush her off. The sting swelled up by the next day more than half way down to my elbow and itched like crazy. Hope I'm not developing an allergy.

Dead-Out

FlashMob hive is dead-out. I bought and assembed a new hive, and purchased 1 new 4# package (Oceanic815) and installed them in the old FlashMob hive. The Others hive is looking fine. I did a split (put them in the new hive - The Black Rock) and purchased a new queen, so I have 3 complete hives now.

Lots of Dead Bees

January 1st. I noticed large pile of new dead bees a few times this winter, both when it's been very cold. These photos were taken after a fairly cold few days and I noticed how many new dead bees there were within a few days because they were all on top of the fresh snow. How many dead bees are normal? Today I cleaned up the accumulated pile in front of 'FlashMob' and it was more than an inch thick in the center. I can still hear buzzing in both hives when I hold my ear up to the side. When I slide out the removable bottom board on 'The Others' there are fresh wax bits across all the frames. On 'FlashMob' the fresh wax bits are clustered to one side. Can't wait to open up the hives!

There is also a lot of mold in 'FlashMob' and a little mold in 'The Others'. I tilted the hives forward a little today, since I saw just a little water on the bottom board when I pulled it out. Around November I noticed a lot of condensation in both hives, on the inner covers and outer covers. Then the mold an mildew started. 'FlashMob' was the worst so I raised the cover just slightly to give them a little more ventilation. Not sure if anything else should/could be done about that but the condensation stopped when the weather got colder, so I put the top cover back down tight so the hive would stay warmer.

Christmas

Honey makes a great Christmas gift!

Honey Harvest

Honey harvest September 5th. FlashMob gave us about 22 pounds of honey, The Others gave us about 3 pounds.

The Darker honey in some of the cells in this photo tasted like blackberries.






We used the crush and strain method for extracting the honey. Messy delicious fun! My kitchen was sticky. I also ended up with about a pound of beeswax. Gavin made biscuits and corn bread a few times over the next week. Can't wait till next year!

FlashMob's honey was much lighter in color than The Others' honey.

Fall feeding and treatments for Nosema and Mites are done. The colonies look healthy headed into winter. Lots of dead drones outside FlashMob's entrance last week. The workers boot them out before winter.