Bee Keeping

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

This morning I got to watch the hatching of two of my solitary blue orchard mason bees from their cocoons. Miraculously I got a couple of good photos of the event:
http://strumelia.blogspot.com/2010/0...-hatching.html

[Zen]

Wow.

I was thinking of you and your bees today. There was a good show on Science Friday today all about bees and beekeeping.
http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201004024

[OakLeaf]

Oh, how exciting!

[short cut sally]

With the past few days being unusually warm and sunny, I decided to investigate the hives.
I got into my dad's hive first, I had to go back and get the smoker, they were a little on the irritated side to say the least. The top brood/honey storage box, was getting filled with pollen, and liquid gold, it was heavy and also filled with bees. The bottom brood box, was full of active bees. I found the queen. She's still healthy, lots of eggs and larvea filled the comb. They were so active it was amazing. They are really consuming the pollen patty and block of sugar that I put on the top of the hive frames.
I lifted the lid off of my hive, and noticed that they were all active on top. I didn't remove any frames, but I lifted the top box off and in the bottom box, there were empty frames, a few straggling bees here and there but no activity what-so-ever, but the bottom board was full of dead bees (I already cleaned them out once). I thought, not good. I've noticed they only are flying in and out from the top vent hole in the inner cover, and not using the entrance. So, my time frame didn't allow me to pull apart the top box of frames to see what they were doing or should I say, how poorly they might be doing. I was hoping as today was going to be nice and warm again, that I would be able to investigate my hive better, but it's so windy out that I'm not going to take any chances. Only time will tell. And here I thought for sure, they were gonna make it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they hang in there. They are all over the sugar block, but not really using it, but they are using the pollen patty.
Oh well, I keep everyone posted!

[short cut sally]

Well, I got to take the hive apart and do an inspection. There appeared to be lots of bees when I took the cover off, however, they were just at the top. There is only a handful left, and there is no queen. I looked twice thinking maybe I just missed her, nope, no queen. So they are doomed, if I had noticed sooner I would've been able to introduce a queen and maybe make things work. With it being the holiday weekend, and my work schedule, it would probably be too late by mid week to get a queen. I will have to make a phone call to see. It might be a pointless venture with so few bees to work with. Time will tell. Enjoy the day.

[tulip]

Sally, so sorry to hear about your hive! I'm glad your dad's is thriving. What can you do if it's too late to introduce a queen?

Lisa, your Mason Bees are really cool. I would love to keep bees, but I'm not sure that I can keep honeybees, as I was very allergic to the stings when I was younger. I keep an epipen with me, but i haven't been stung in decades, so I don't know if I still am allergic. Sometimes kids outgrow it, I've heard.

But I could keep Mason Bees (or at least provide them with tubes)!

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

But I could keep Mason Bees (or at least provide them with tubes)!

Exactly. And you could feel good about helping our native bees.

Sally, I would take those leftover bees and do a 'newspaper combine' to put them in your healthy hive rather than just let them die off.
If you can get your good hive built up enough, you could just do a split.

[short cut sally]

Bleeker, I thought about doing the paper split to combine the dwindling hive, my husband did too. I should've done the paper split last week, to be honest, but then I thought, what if they were diseased by something, and I introduced something into the strong hive. Then I would be really upset. It was a 50/50 thing I debated about. They looked healthy but I'm a newbie at bees and maybe I'm missing something that I hadn't been exposed to yet. ( I did a couple of hive days last year with an experienced bee keeper who showed me different things but that was last year, and my memory goes empty at times like my cats food dish after he's been sleeping all day). The total bees last week might have covered one side of a frame, if that...it was a gamble, and still is a gamble.. I'll update when I go and visit the hive..thanks for the concerns everyone!

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

My two new honeybee colonies arrived and I installed them into their two new hives yesterday. Very exciting! All went well, totally gentle bees and can't wait to see them fly today...supposed to hit 74F and sunny! Woo-HOOOOO!!!!
YES!!!!

[short cut sally]

Oh Bleeker, you will so enjoy them. I know I have.
To update on my hive that was essentially doomed. There is a shining star looking out for them yet. I see today that there are larvea in small to large stages, so I'm thinking maybe they made a queen. I inspected today and even though I didn't see one, there must be one. They had some spunk today too. It was too bad I used all my cornhusks and peanut shells for the smoker for my dad's bees. I'll know next time to take all the stuff in the bee yard with me instead of leaving it behind. My dad's bees are going great guns, I think I'll be adding another hive body on next week or so..they are like everywhere..

[crazycanuck]

Saw this on today & thought the bee folks might like it

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth...00/8682842.stm

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Here's a video i took of my new bee hives a few days ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN8DA_F6hUw
it was a pretty buzy day.

[crazycanuck]

Just another reason to be a small bee hive keeper...
http://www.news.com.au/world/one-per...-1225871170288

[OakLeaf]

Wow.

Bee peeps, how likely is it that these bees will survive?

I still have not seen a single honeybee since we've been back in Ohio. Seven weeks now.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Just another reason to be a small bee hive keeper...
http://www.news.com.au/world/one-per...-1225871170288

I've seen this story in several versions already.
When you see the various photos, there are obviously not 7000 bee hives on that truck. The bee owner said it was 800 single hives (that number jives better with the photos), and of those only 150 hives either fell off the truck or were jarred open. Bee-wise, it's lucky the bee truck did not tip over. Yes that's a lot of bees escaping, but 4/5 of the hives on the truck were not damaged or cracked opened. Beekeeper workers transferred the undamaged hives onto a new truck and got them out of there.
The one person killed and other people injured were in vehicles that collided with the truck. One car was very badly crushed, it's a wonder more people weren't killed or seriously hurt. Very sad.

Some of the 150 or so crashed hives might have been salvageable, at least in parts. The beekeeper could probably re-use some of the frames and boxes, and might even have been able to transfer some frames full of bees or brood that were on the ground into empty boxes and transport them away from the crash site. Once the hives are removed from the highway area any remaining flying disoriented bees will disperse and probably die off.