Pictures of our winter killed hive

Queen cell from different angles. This hive swarmed last summer before we bought it from a neighbor.

There were several frames of beautiful capped honey in this hive. They starve to death while attempting to chew through the caps.

Bee butts. This is a pretty good indication that they starved.

I am pretty sure this was caused by an infestation of varroa mites that we din't catch until it was too late in the year to do anything about it. I lost two hives to varroa this year and have one more struggling. They were eating a few days ago when I checked on them, but they don't seem to have the numbers that the Utah hive does. I hope it makes it.

Another one bites the dust.

It was warm enough yesterday to go out and check the hives for the first time in about two months. Our nuc is doing great, and that is the one we were worried about. They still aren't out of the woods, but they are eating the sugar we put in the hive for them. They don't seem too interested in the pollen patties, but as long as they are eating something they should be ok. The Utah hive is still strong and more aggressive than the others. I bet we will have to split that hive this year to keep them from swarming. They were eating the sugar in their hive too, but were also trying to get into the other hives to see what they could rob. Going to have to watch that situation. Nevada hive #1 is strong and doing well. More gentle than the Utah hive, but I don't think I would want to work them without gloves and veil. Nevada hive #2 is dead :( The bees were laying dead on top of the sugar so I know they didn't starve. I think the mites got them. These were the bees we bought last fall and by the time we noticed the mites, it was too late in the season to do much about it. So now we have two big hives and a nuc that are still doing well. Let's hope it stays that way.

and then there were four

We lost a hive early this winter due to exessive robbing. We lost our Georgia hive that had always been so strong, the one that we had just requeened, the one that had spent the summer kicking our Utah hives tails. I don't know why they were suddenly weak enough that they would allow themselves to be robbed so badly. Our nuc took a pretty serious hit as well, but they are still hanging in there. We bought some pollen patties to feed all of them through the winter so hopefully we don't lose anymore. I am thinking of naming my hives with native animals. I can paint a siliouette of each animal on the hive. That is one way to help my husband remember. Right now we just call them the Utah hive, the two nevada hives, and the california hive. It gets confusing. Hubby wants to paint a different color on the landing board of each hive, but I am not so convinced. Thoughts?

major score

   Hubby and I went to check our hives this evening. Our medium hive, the one we moved back home is really packed with bees and honey. Doing great. Our Nuc in the front yard is also doing very well and will need a new box very soon. The big hive in the canyon....not so much. While not struggling, it is not growing either. It has enough honey stores to get through the winter, but none for harvest.
   On the way home we were discussing where to go from here. How many hives we wanted for next year, where we wanted to get them, ect. We had only been home about a half hour when a beekeeper neighbor called to say he was getting out of the bee business. He wanted to know if I wanted to buy his two established hives and his extractor for $300. We will be picking them up next week :-)

Hive inspection

   I moved my bees out to a farm/ranch nearby in a small valley that is much cooler and greener than my house. My neighbors were actually upset and several have asked us where the bees are. They missed them.
   The weather has been so dry, I was worried about them starving here. Now I am worried about them starving out there as well. My small hive isn't doing well at all. There seem to be a lot more bees than when we got them, but the brood pattern is very spotty and they have absolutely NO pollen or honey stored in the hive at all. I think it might be time to requeen them and bring them home so I can feed them.
   I know there is food available, they are on the edge of three alfalfa/clover fields that are in bloom. The big hive has honey and pollen stored. Not as much as I had hoped, but they still have some. I might not get any honey again this year. *sigh* So far the bees have only been an expense and I am getting frustrated. I am not about to give up on them, I just wish they would start to give back a little.
 This darn heat is really messing with everything this summer. I have not been able to plant much of a garden and much of what I did plant never came up. We are going to be out of town quite a bit this summer and it just wasn't worth replanting.
   Hope everyone else is having a better summer than we are.

What a bee-utiful day!

Yeah, I know. That was a lame little pun, I couldn't help myself. For the last couple of weeks, Hubby has been building new beehives for me. We ordered a nuc that we will have to pick up sometime in May. I am also going to split my hive this spring.  The first hive was completed today.

Pretty nice, huh? Here is the old and new hives next to each other. The bees kept flying into the new hive to see if there was anything good in there. I hope they give it up soon so that they don't rob the new bees when I install them in the hive. I think I am going to have to do some research on the subject.

We also opened the existing hive today. This was the first time I ever had help (hubby got his own veil today, hooo hooo!) and I never felt comfortable taking it all apart without an extra set of hands, so this was a first for me. We had some funky architecture going on with some frames. This one was just weird. Loads of brood though, so I know the queen is doing a good job. Look at the little white spots near the bottom, those are larva. Gross little white worm looking things. Those will soon be busy little bees. I also saw a few drones, I still kind of like those guys. I feel bad for them, they are so gentle and sweet.

The queen is in this picture, can you see her?

How about now? She's almost in the middle of the pic 

Anyway, all seems to be well in the hive and I am looking forward to fall when I can have my first harvest!

Bee update

I opened the hive today, and boy those bees were PISSED. I was smoking the bees, I was smoking myself to keep the bees off, I was smoking the air around me hoping to clear them enough that I could see what I was doing. They were quickly running out of room so I stopped smoking long enough to run to the garage and grab another super to add to the hive. I got it all in place and left the girls to explore. (Just realized I have not seen any drones in a long while, weird). Now that the smoke has cleared (pun intended, lol) the hive seems more calm than it has been in weeks. I think the girls are all busy inside making sure everything is ok and checking out the new digs. Hopefully that will settle them down a little and give them something to do besides harass us and the neighbors.

Crazy bees.

It is HOT. I am not complaining, we had too long of a winter to complain about the heat once we finally get it. But it is so hot that my bees just hang out on the hive in the evenings enjoying the cool evening temps. My queen comes out onto the porch and her secret service guard bees freak out and get VERY aggressive. The crawl all over her and sting everyone (me) that gets close. She is really causing them some serious stress. I would hate to have their job.

The first time I saw this, I completely freaked out and called my big brother (once again big bro comes to the rescue) to ask if my bees were running away. We finally decided it was simply too hot to stay in the hive once the outside temps cool.

Makes for a cool pic, but the bees are certainly more on edge when Queen Anne is taking risks.

Oh, by the way, Orajel works very well on bee stings : )

Opened my hive yesterday

So I decided to open my hive for the first time yesterday. Here goes nothing.

Taking off the inner cover.

The bees are all hanging out in the middle two frames.

Checking for brood and looking for the queen.

The bees had build comb on top of comb. (After a panicked phone call to my brother I found out this is called bridging and is common and normal.) When I was looking at the frame, this extra chunk of comb crashed to the ground at my feet covered with thousands of bees. I was a bit freaked out.

I picked up the chunks of comb and placed them on top of the hive to allow the bees to wander back into the frames. Of course they didn't and I had to brush them all off the comb before I removed it.

I never did see the queen and couldn't see any brood either. I put everything back together and brought the excess comb into the house. A few hours later, I DID notice some eggs in a few cells of comb. So I DO have a queen and she IS laying. All is well in the hive!
Kind of cool, isn't it?

Whew

Ok so hiving the bees was a LOT easier than I thought it was going to be. They finally showed up this afternoon and I went into a panic. 30,000 bees being talked about in emails and phone calls, is a lot different than 30,000 bees in a box on the kitchen counter. I called my brother who has been a beekeeper for a few years now and he had a few recommendations for me. I got all of my equipment together, called the neighbors who wanted to watch and handed the camcorder to my oldest son. (That video will not be posted, lol) I sprayed my bees with the syrup I made the day before, jarred them down to the bottom of the cage, struggled with the can of syrup that had been shipped with them, finally pulled it out and retrieved the queen cage. The queen was not impressed with me AT ALL. She tried to escape the whole time I was trying to pry the cork out of the top of her little box. I ended up pushing it all the way through and into her cage. Luckily that occupied her while I plugged the hole with half a mini marshmallow. I got the queen cage hung and then jarred the package of bees again to force them all to the bottom of the box. I removed the lid and placed the package in the empty hive body that I had placed on the top of the full hive body. This is not the traditional method but it is the way I was told to do it due to the storm rolling in. I wanted to keep as many bees in the hive as possible, they weren't going to have much time to find their way back in before the storm hit. I put the outer cover on top of it all and viola! I was done. It took less than 10 minutes and no one got stung.