Bees of Stoney Creek

Split Molly Brown and Queen Piping.

2011-07-08T23:52:00.000-07:00

On 3rd July, Sunday, I split Molly Brown. I took out the queen and five frames of brood, added 2 frames of brood and a pollen patty to create the new split. I noticed it was time to split MB when supersedure cells were being constructed.

On 7th July, I checked the queenless MB and the emerging queens were piping. It was the first time I heard the queens piping. Was really quite a moment to relish to hear such a sound and observe how the bees behave differently while queenless. " Piping is most common when there is more than one queen in a hive. It is postulated that the piping is a form of battle cry announcing to competing queens and the workers their willingness to fight. It may also be a signal to the worker bees which queen is the most worthwhile to support." Wikipidea.

The bees were running around as if insecure and lacking identity. They were attacking my fingers and the hive tool. Was an unusual behavior and I had the hunch that I should slip on my gloves with queenless MB. Found at least 10-12 supersedure cells. Destroyed all but two cells. One cell was capped and piping, the other is a big cell and uncapped. Was in dilemma which should I keep. I placed a green thumbtack to identify the frame where the supersedure cells are to check when I go in this weekend to check on the development of the cells.

Ant Problem

2011-07-08T23:18:00.000-07:00

Ants have discovered the sweet oasis from the hive and they have been mobilizing themselves to take over the colony. I opened up the hive last week and the ants have used the inner cover board to carry ant eggs about a thousand of them to be hatched above the hive. I check the hive every week otherwise, I'll be keeping ants. The ants has made the bees edgy and it has made beekeeping more challenging. The bees have shorter temper as they are more defensive throughout the day. I've been wearing gloves to not get stunk. They have also been propolizing cracks around the inner cover to stop ants from coming into the hive.

I have since placed the hive over a stand that is surrounded by a pool of cooking oil to prevent the ants from climbing into the hive. So far that has managed to reduce the amount of ants significantly.There are still ants but I think they are climbing in from the overhanging weeds. I used pasta bottle lids to hold the oil and some unused Ikea parts to create the stand.

Queen Rearing Calendar

2011-05-26T16:43:00.000-07:00

I found a link that would help in planning out a schedule for queen rearing. I think it'll be useful when I am ready to start doing my own queen rearing. The calendar allows you to change the date when you want to start grafting and then plans out exactly what needs to be done from then on. Check it out:

http://www.thebeeyard.org/queencalendar.pl?month=5&day=14&year=2011

Update on Honey Bee Democracy

2011-05-25T16:06:00.000-07:00

I learnt alot about how the honeybee decision making process from the HoneyBee Democracy by Thomas Seeley. They are nature's secret to the best politicians. When ten thousand bees want a new home, they form a house hunting "Senate" who are made up of older, experienced bees called Scout Bees. The Scout Bees come back and do a convincing dance to present the new home to the rest of the colony. The queen is not in charge of this decision making, no veto power for her at all. The decision is made collectively, bottom up and its done by voting. When the majority of the Scout Bees dance about the same new home , that is when the Scout Bees will wait for the 1st sunny day after the decided vote and then begin to rev up the engines of all the bees to lead them to their new home. They literally sound like an accelarating car engine when they roar out of the hive to swarm. I enjoyed reading the book but it was even better listening to Thomas Seeley talking about his research. Click the link to listen to the excellent animated radio podcast: HONEY BEE DEMOCRACY then if you are still interested watch the video below on how his research team translated the Bee Waggle Dance to communicate where the new home, the sweetest flower, a water source and more, in terms of distance, sun declination, smell and taste of the nectar and flight angle when leaving the hive.

Video on Installing Molly Brown

2011-05-23T13:48:00.000-07:00

The video footage is pretty bad as I was taking the video with one hand. I should use a tripod in future to improve my video taking. I have added subtitles as my low pitched voice sounds quite muffled.

Installing Molly Brown.

New Project: Foundationless frames and small cell foundation in brood chambers

2011-05-23T00:44:00.000-07:00

I have named the new hive, Molly Brown (MB). She takes over Matilda's equipments and since all the equipment are marked with a M for Matilda, it made sense to keep the 1st name starting with a M to organize the equipment and to avoid interchanging equipment to prevent diseases spreading from one hive to another.

Queen Molly Brown has been laying very well. She was released from her queen cage on May 14th. By May 20th, she has filled up five frames with eggs and the oldest larvae is 6 days old. She started laying almost one day (May 15th) after she was released. She is laying at a rate faster than the bees can build comb cells since most of the five frames are all foundationless.

I started off the package with one small cell 4.9mm foundation and 4 frames with starter strips. The 3rd day after the package was installed, I checked the hive and the frame with the full small cell foundation collapsed. It was a good thing I discovered the collapse, as the bees were already building their own comb that were not aligned with the frame. I replaced it quickly with a foundationless frame instead. The small cell foundation being made of pure beeswax is much softer and fragile than plastic foundation but the greatest advantage is the bees builds comb on it immediately. On 20th May, I added two more frames with small cell foundation, this time properly securing the foundation with popsicles and a touch of wood glue to prevent another collapse, by 22nd May, the bees already built comb on 30% of the foundation on one side of each frame. Its the fastest adaptation of foundation I've seen. There were so much stores on those frames that the foundation was starting to warp to one side coz of the weight imbalance. I rotated the frame to balance out the comb building.

Goal:
The main goal of the small cell 4.9mm foundation is to have the egg to bee development stage of 21 days shortened to disrupt the varroa mite life cyle. The 4.9mm cell creates a much tighter fit when the larvae grows, leaving less space for varroa mites plus the cell gets sealed earlier which tightens the opportunity for varroa to enter the cell to lay eggs during the pupae/development stage of the honey bee. The common honey bee is a perfect host as the varroa mite takes advantage of the 12 day pupae stage of the bee to lay its eggs (up to 21 eggs), the eggs to hatch, mature as mites and then mate while still in the capped cell. Only the matured and mated female mites leave the cell, the male mite and the immature mites dies. The female mites leaves the cell to latch itself on the nurse bees, the mites feed on the new host and then goes to another brood cell just before it gets sealed to lay more eggs. So the small cell foundation is to spoil this cycle. It is known that the AHBs have shorter development time and fewer mites can come to maturity.

Desired Result:
I've also heard that the bees emerging from 4.9mm cell have smaller bodies and a longer wing to body ratio. My guess is that the bees may have better energy efficiency when they get to their foraging stage. Maybe the smaller forager bees live for an extra 2-4 days which would mean a higher amount of nectar and pollen stored in the hive.

Reality:
I don't think the gals in Molly Brown are following the 4.9mm cell size. They seem to be building over the prescribed cell size. But it is still to early to really say but I will be updating this in a few days time with proper measurements. Here you can see the 4.9mm starter strips that have not been built over on the left side and on the right side, the cell sizes are bigger.

For normal plastic foundation the cell size is 5.4mm. I have noticed that for natural comb built on foundationless frames the size varies from 5.1mm-7mm. The larger cells up to 7mm were noticed on the periphery of the frames where the bees store honey and pollen. The cell size decreases as it gets to the center where brood is nursed. I thought this was very a smart building plan. Larger cells for more food storage and smaller cells to nurture a small honey bee.

The picture below is comb built within 3 days on all five frames.

A new start to everything

2011-05-11T13:49:00.000-07:00

All my original hive that started out in 2009 Summer have all perished this winter. I had a 100% overwintering rate in 2009/2010 winter and a 100% loss in 2010/2011 winter.

Today I am restarting beekeeping with a package of bees from New Zealand from Bartel Honey Bee farm brought into Canada by Urban Bee Supplies. Doug Hansen, the President of the Burquitlam Community Organic Gardens went with me for the pick up.

This is the package bees in Arataki tubes in the trunk of Doug's car going back to the community gardens.

Upright view of the package in the tool shed at the gardens.

I am adapting to small cell and foundationless frames in the brood chamber. Lianne Shyry that runs Two Bees Apiary supplied the small cell foundations. We are both trying this new method out and will be comparing notes. Its an excellent feeling to be partnering with Lianne and Garrett in this new experiment. The small cell foundations were specially made out of beeswax. They were the most delicate foundation I have dealt with and I am sure the bees will love it. I am yet to see it work. Will report my observation in the weekend. I have noticed that the plastic foundation always seem to take a while to get the bees going with building comb especially when the frames are situated at the ends.

This is the package already installed. Placed them in a deep super with 5 frames with 1:1 sugar syrup and a pollen patty. On the left is crumpled paper to fill up the extra space to prevent the bees from building comb.

Matilda is a living dead

2011-04-13T22:00:00.000-07:00

It is so sad that my dear Matilda, my last hive that came out of winter the 'strongest' bcoz the rest died, may not make it as well. In the previous post, I mentioned that I observed the queen just started laying. So on April 10th, I went to the community gardens with confidence that the eggs would have hatched and would now be capped. That did not happen because the eggs did not hatch. I saw the eggs from MArch 26th still looking like a tiny piece of rice standing upright. This time there were more eggs that the queen has laid." Oh Matilda, why didn't you start laying earlier when there were more bees? Not all your fault, I know." The cold weather and the rain has been so persistent caused a lack of flowers in bloom or caused very late blooming periods. As the days pass, the bees that are present will expire. Most of the bees in there right now are really old and are almost 6 months old.

I was told that the eggs are not hatching because the humidity in the hive is too low and there are too few bees to maintain that level of humidity and temperature to incubate the eggs to hatch. There was also a claim that for a very very weak hive to survive and build brood. A minimum of 300 bees are needed. I think Matilda has about less than a 100 bees left.

I must say keeping bees in Vancouver's weather has been challenging and of course I'm still a 'wet behind the ears' chemical-free beekeeper. I now understand why they say that you only know how to keep bees after going through at least 5 winters. Its the skill in prepping the hive for winter, finding signs of weakness, knowing what to do to minimize losses and etc. For 2 years in a row in spring, I had troubles in the hive. Last year, Matilda swarmed without me detecting and I had a virgin queen that did not have a week of good sunny weather for mating. So I ended up with a drone laying queen. But actually, that swarming maybe the reason why Matilda is still surviving because it had no laying queen for almost one month and the varroa mites cannot reproduce with the young bee larvaes because there were none for a month. The mite levels probably dropped drastically for that period. Whereas Bombay that got hit hard with Nosema Ceranae, had a high mite count throughout the summer and going into winter. Bombay clearly did not have varroa resistant genes and it would have needed a few season to survive to build such a resistant. The mites in Bombay then made new bees emerging for winter to become weaker and became the vector for disease to fester as the bee's immune system has been weakened.

This morning, I decided I maybe could save Matilda when I placed an order for a package of NZ Carniolan bees which a shipment was arriving today and I could immediately use the heat from the new package to warm up Matilda by placing Matilda over the new packaged hive. THe hive will be separated by a cloth the bees cannot chew through but heat can pass through. I was going to pick up the bees at 5pm today but I got a call at 3pm that the shipment did not have enough packages and my order had to be delayed. DANG! I appreciated the call from Lindsay. Had so many bad experiences from bee suppliers in Vancouver. Recently, there has been more bee suppliers who are younger and more oriented to the hobby beekeeper. The lousy suppliers I had dealt with were mostly commericial beekeepers and running a retail shop for hobby beekeepers as a side job. Hence a subpar service or being dishonest. I called Urban Bee Supplies for the NZ package and Lindsay Dault was informative, responsive and friendly. Even sent me a video on where the bees were from and how to install the package. Excellent. I hope she does well and call me soon for a package of bees.

Mid-March still cold and no brood

2011-03-26T18:10:00.000-07:00

I was hoping my worries for Matilda will be over with some brood. Purple Crocuses have been in bloom but nothing really much is in bloom since mid-March, although more and more flower buds are about to burst. Cherry blossoms are blooming at glacial speed. Last year this time, cherry blossoms are about to end. There has not been enough blooms to stimulate the queen to start laying. On March 14th, I added 1:1 sugar syrup mixed with Echinacea, peppermint and lavender tea and added a new pollen patty. The tea is not some special recipe, they were tea leaves given by my friend Andrew and it is so fragrant that I hoped it stimulates the bees to feed. I thought at least by the 16th of March, the queen will start laying and I would expect to start seeing sealed brood by today. Instead, I saw that the queen just started laying yesterday. The eggs were upright and at least 100 eggs were laid. The queen was also found on the same frame. Well at least something and hope they are fertilized eggs. Doomed if they came out drones. I guess I would have been even more worried if I didn't see eggs by now. So I can expect to see the first batch of workers/ to emerge by April 16th. The next 8 days are crucial for the overwintered bees to do their best in making sure that most of the eggs laid will emerge into healthy new bees. By then I would also know if they were fertilized eggs. I also noticed that some cells had 3 eggs laid in it. Wondering why? Overall, the queen's laying pattern was good. Got an answer from BeeMaster Forum, that the queen when just starting to lay eggs will accidentally lay 2-3 eggs in a cell and nothing to be concerned about.

I have figured that artificial feeding is not a sure way of stimulating the queen to start laying. It would be the lowest average temperature of the day and the amount of natural forage available for the bees to bring back pollen. The artificial feeding as I understand is to sustain the hive in case the natural elements are lacking to provide with the food demands of the colony and may rely on it to maintain its current production of brood.

These are some of the gorgeous Purple Crocuses that bloomed around the community garden on March 20th. These flowers were just about 5m from the hive and the bees were returning with heavy bags of pollen to the hive.

Was cleaning up supers from Bombay that was infected with Nosema for Iotron treatment on Tuesday. Iotron is a name of a company that provides services to beekeepers, horticulturist and any food/medical business that needs to sterilize equipments. They use electromagnetic radiation to sterilize the equipments as the beams destroys the DNA molecules in the bacteria. I was scraping off all the sugar syrup that were stored in sealed combs from last fall into the garbage bin. It was heartbreaking to remember how well the hive was doing last September and wasting all the golden beeswax that had sugar/honey. This had to be done as I was told that the electron beams don't penetrate combs with honey, or maybe it could be too heavy for those loading the conveyor belt or the sugars/honey could be carriers of the bacteria. Anyway, whatever it is I would like to not have a repeat of Nosema for the new nucleus colony I have ordered. Its painful to see bee poo all over the frames and knowing the bees died horribly. Read previous post on why they died horribly.

On a good note, Matilda can turn out to be a mite and disease free hive if it does well. The long dearth of brood (early Dec-March 25th) in the hive may have wiped out all the Varroa mites. I am really looking forward to manage a hive without any mites. So much less work, so much more healthy bees and definitely a higher survival rate for overwintering hives. Too good to be true? But it is a possiblity! For future hives to come, I would definitely be trying a method of caging the queen for about 13-15days to stop her from laying to control the level of mites in the hive. One more weapon to control mites without chemicals.

Whats left.

2011-02-20T22:37:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a gorgeous sunny day hitting the highest of 5 deg Celsius. I was excited to check the hive after such a long 2 weeks of rain and cold weather.

As of know I already know that Camille has died of starvation.

Matilda is still doing well. She is all I got right now. I gave a pollen patty. I was considering not to give as the hive still had tons of pollen gathered from last fall in the lower chamber. But I guess, it may be too cold still to venture to the bottom chamber. Please do well Matilda! I need the weather to cooperate. I wish for more warmer and sunny weather.

Bombay is a goner too. Lost her to Nosema. I've collected some bees to send to the Ministry lab for testing. Evidence of Nosema were everywhere. I would like to know if this is Nosema Ceranae or Apis. I treated Bombay with Fumagilin and still Nosema affected it. I noticed that bees in the hive had somewhat of a similar way of dieing. Alot of the bees had the middle left leg sticking upwards. I am guessing that is how the Nosema bacteria in the guts ruptures through a nervous system that kills the bee and also causes that leg to rise. I could not get a clear picture as they were blurred from a camera that has lousy focusing. I made the picture huge so maybe you can see what I'm describing. Scroll to the right and see some of the evidence of Nosema.
When observing the frames, I can tell it was a horrible death. Bees having to hold their bladder from December to February and then getting killed by the bacteria in their own guts. The high number of bees that got affected by the Nosema, the hive could not maintain a warm cluster. The rest of the bees surviving were probably left stranded wherever they were, either in a paralyzed state coz of the cold and others who got hungry and were in a spot where the combs are empty probably did not have enough energy to walk to find food even if it was just 10cm away and then died of starvation. I saw bees with their butts sticking out of the comb probably trying to keep warm and licking every last drop in the comb at the same time. And may have even froze in the comb. Tragic!

I decided to quickly clean out the hive screen bottom boards and clear out all the dead bees before fungus grows. The boards were caked with a 2 cm deep of dead bees and mostly covered with fungus. I made sure I cleaned them out while I was upwind. Really don't want to breathe in any of that fungus spores.

Matilda you are my only hope! All the gloom and doom has to stop with great memories of summer. :)

Currently Reading: Honeybee Democracy by Thomas Seeley.

2011-02-09T22:46:00.000-08:00

Winter is a good time to pick up on more knowledge while there ain't so much work to be done in the hives. THere is also less I could do anyway so I just borrowed Honeybee Democracy by Thomas Seeley from the library. Its understanding bees swarming in a whole different angle. I"ll add more to this post when I turn more pages in the book. I found this video that decoded the illusive waggle dance.

Hive Status Jan 30th

2011-01-30T23:02:00.000-08:00

Today is the 1st sunny day after a long week of rain. I have been aching to visit the hive All the short sunny spots that occurred this week were on weekdays and I was at work. Receiving emails from fellow beekeepers noting that their hives were bringing in pollen made me envious to check on how mine were doing.

I opened Bombay first. There was a small cluster in the upper brood chamber and lots of honey left. At least 6-7 frames of honey. I was hoping to find the cluster extending down to the lower brood chamber as it seems too few bees are left. I lifted the upper brood chamber to take a peep and there was nothing below. I had a bad feeling if they would survive or not. I rotated one frame where the cluster was closest, to get access to more honey and shifted the remaining pollen patty left behind in November over the cluster. Hopefully, if the queen is laying they can slowly replenish their numbers. I lifted the entrance reducer to clear some dead bees and there was so many dead bees. The screened bottom board was just chalked up with dead frozen bees. I closed up the bottom to maintain their heating system just in case the dead bees were somewhat of a wind/cold breaker.

I opened Matilda next. The hive looks better. At least 2 frames of bees remaining and tightly clustered. Honey storage levels seems the same. At least 6-7 frames left. Did not need to shift any frames as the cluster was on a frame full of honey. After opening, they started to fly out to gather pollen from catkins hanging from the hazelnut tree.

Lastly, I opened Camille. Clear dead out. It was as expected but I was hopeful that it wouldn't come to a tragic end. From the previous post, the hive only took in 3 gallons or less of 2:1 sugar syrup. Below is what is Camille. The bees were not frozen. The bees at the top were dry and it seemed that they died together just 1-3days ago.

Hive Covered in December

2011-01-23T21:22:00.000-08:00

Only Matilda and Bombay are covered with Bee Cozy. Camille is not as an experiment to see if it is necessary to cover in our Vancouver winters. They don't look well wrapped as the Bee Cozy was bought on my 1st winter with the bees and I was wintering them in a single chamber. All the hives are on screen bottom board fully opened year round to promote maximum ventilation. Between the outer cover and the inner cover there is a styrofoam board to prevent a cold front on the inner cover that will cause condensation from the bees heat generation and the cold air outside.

On Dec 4th, Matilda and Bombay were treated for mites with 100ml of oxalic acid. I made sure the treated sugar syrup was nice and warm. I made 150 gm of 1:1 sugar syrup with 4 gm of oxalic acid. Camille was not treated as an experiment as well.

Matilda and Bombay were clustered in exactly the same manner except the bees in Matilda was on the right and Bombay was on the left of the hive. They filled 6 frames in the upper and lower chambers = 12 frames of bees.

Preparing the Hive for a Vancouver winter

2011-01-23T21:19:00.000-08:00

After harvesting honey from the Matilda and Bombay, its time to give back to ensure they had enough storage to last through the winter that starts in Vancouver from November till end of February. Winter really starts for the bees when the last Sunflower and Aster flowers withers away. That is when there is nothing left to forage eventhough there may be nice sunny days that are ideal for the bees to fly out.

So to prepare for this I started to do price comparisons of Rogers 10kg sugar bags. The good thing about preparing the hive for winter is that there are no big holidays around the corner where everyone likes to bake for the family which is the best time for beekeepers to stock up on sugar. A 10kg bag of sugar during mid-August cost $8.88 - 9.99 at Superstore and when comes Thanksgiving or Christmas is near a bag will cost $$12.99-$13.99.

I bought 8 bags of sugar. I've never bought so much sugar in my life before at a time. When I looked at the amount of sugar I bought, it felt I was running a bakery shop. Friends with cars are my best friends when I need to cart around heavy stuff. Ted was the driver of the day. Of course, Ted got a gorgeous jar of honey for helping.

I took a day off from work to mix the sugar into a 2:1 sugar syrup. Borrowed a propane burner and a witch concoction pot to deep fry turkey from a friend.

All the white pails behind the pot is to store the sugar syrup over the 10 weeks of feeding. My first winter with the bees, I used to make sugar syrup every week at home and pour them into one gallon containers. Then lug at least 2 one gallon container on the skytrain and then on a bus to get to the hive. It was too much of a hassle and that had to change. Making the sugar syrup at the gardens is the best method so far to save time and way more manageable. With the Witch Pot I could make 15 litres = 3.96 gallons at a time. That is about 10kg of sugar with 5 litres of water. But somehow I don't get why when I mix sugar with water in that proportion I don't quite get the 3.96 gallons I expect. I always get about 3.5 gallons or little less. The density of water must be quite expandable that it absorbs the sugar and does not add to the volume. If anyone has got the science of this, I would like to try out your formula. Anyway, boiling 5 litres of water with the propane burner takes about 10mins or less which is really fast.

At the end of all the pouring, stirring and mixing of 80 kg of sugar with 40 litres of water, I yielded 30 gallons of 2:1 sugar syrup which was perfect for 3 hives to have 10 gallons (40kg) each to store for the winter. They stored perfectly well from September till it was all gone which was 1st week of November. I also added juice of 1 lime/lemon to 1 gallon of syrup every 2 weeks to boost Vitamin C intake.Hopefully, there will be some benefits to doing that. Fumagilin was added as well for the 1st and 3rd week of feeding.

After the 10 weeks of feeding 2:1 sugar syrup, Matilda and Bombay was back breaking heavy in the top brood chamber. The bottom brood chamber were mostly filled with pollen. I thought that was interesting, that the bees organized it in that way. Since I placed the frame feeder at the top chamber, it would be just easier and closer to just store the sugar syrup at the top and foragers can dump pollen at the bottom chamber to shorten the time to unload and do the next trip. The only problem was Camille was not taking in the syrup like the other 2 hive. In total it took just about 3 gallons. I cross my fingers that Camille will make it through the winter.

Lastly for mite treatment, the hives were only sugar dusted. 2 cups of blended sugar per hive for 10 weeks. 1 cup per brood chamber. They were dusted on the same day each week for 10 weeks. I did not stay to count the mite fall after each dusting. Partly because I did not want to get disheartened by the number of mites I'll find. I did the sugar shake mite count every 3 weeks and my infestation rate is high! It was sitting at an average of 15-20%. The application was not consistent as well as sometimes I'll get 100 nurse bees and the week after I'll get 300 nurse bees as I was reading different articles that recommended differently. After doing some reading on this method, I'll only collect 1 cup of bees which is an approximate of 100 bees. I really like the sugar shake method as none of the bees in the test dies. They come out of the jar groggy but after 2 minutes, they are back in the hive. I also figured that if I am taking nurse bees who are mostly carriers of the mites, they are too important to lose. The caring for the thousands of larvae (big demanding job), feeding the queen, building comb and etc. Plus nurse bees have the highest levels of vitellogenin and it is vital to the health of entire colony. I am very conscious of the efficiency levels in the hive and I strive to not affect that efficiency by reducing the amount of bees I injure or kill in anything I do in the hive.

Video Tour Around my Bee Yard

2010-10-13T19:48:00.000-07:00

I just got a Kodak Video with digital camera 5 MP functions that can also immersed in water up to 3meters. So after some of you who had to tilt your head and putting up with mute video clips. This HD video tour around my yard would be a step up.

Leave a comment if you liked the video or let me know what else you would like to see in the hive.

Biggest day ever for beekeeping- My 1st Honey Harvest

2010-10-13T19:36:00.000-07:00

On Aug 15th , I got my very 1st honey harvest. A honey harvest to me felt like passing my driver's licence test at the 1st attempt. I remembered all that nervousness taking that test, lips all getting dried, shaky hands, a bit wobbly on the feet, knowing that not many pass on their 1st try and when the tester says "You have passed!", all that cooped up feeling of joy just bursting out. When the honey started flowing from the extractor into the bucket for filtering, that was my "You have passed!" feeling. Hard to describe but I think this "You have passed!" feeling is quite close. Ok I gotta do the thank yous now. So I would like to thank the bees from Matilda and Bombay for providing 57lbs=25kg of honey. For the 1st year, this amount is excellent. Let me show you the pictures of the harvesting process.

There are 15 frames to harvest in the 2 supers. The stainless steel drum is a 2-frame extractor. So 2 frames get spinned at a time. The spinning was very time consuming.

Here I am using an uncapping knife which is like a hot iron to melt the wax that the bees had made to seal the honey on the combs. Now for the build up of the "You've passed!" feeling.

Yes still empty. I am just about to turn on the tap. Hold on.....................

Let me show you a video, still pictures doesn't really cut it for the "You've passed!" feeling. .............

Sorry that you had to tilt your head 90degrees to the left to watch the video. I will improve my video taking next time. That golden flow is just gorgeous! Now this video below, I am pouring my 1st bottle of honey.

Then I start putting my orders together.

As a special touch and only for the 1st year, I placed a honey comb in each bottle. Each bottle of honey here is 1kg. The bottle weighs about 0.339kg so thats why the weighing machine shows 1.4kg.

This completes my 1st Honey Harvest. I am sold out of honey for the year. The white pail that was used to store the honey, is empty. Thanks to all who bought my honey. All that support you've shown allows me to carry on what I do best for the bees. On behalf of the bees, hope you enjoyed the honey if you were lucky enough to have got a bottle.

Bees Drink Water

2010-08-19T23:11:00.000-07:00

In Vancouver, we've had 3 weeks of hot weather, temperatures averaging above 28 degrees. All the grass turned brown and forest fires in the Interior of British Columbia are raging. Inside the hives, the temperature were definitely above the 30 degree range with the thousands of bees moving in/out of the hive to collect nectar. When I visited the hives a couple of times after sunset, the bees were bearding at the hive entrance. Bees beard at the hive entrance as it is too hot in the hive to rest. It is just like some of us who will sleep on the floor if our mattress is too hot or set up tent in the backyard where the temperature is cooler. When the ambient temperature in the hive cools, they will go back inside. Bees have a couple of ways to cool the hives down. They organize a few rows to fan the hot air out using their powerful wings. Another row of bees, on the other end of the hive entrance will be fanning air into the hive. Air circulation in the hive is now excellent with all these bees fanning. If you are lucky to be at the hive at this type of moments, place your hand slowly in front of the hive entrance and feel the power of the wind they create from those tiny bodies while at a stationary position. To top off the cooling strategy, foraging bees are sent out to collect water instead of the usual nectar. Below is a picture of the bees drinking water from a pail in the community garden. This pail is about 25 metres from the hive.

As bees don't swim well or at all, they use their long tongue to reach into the water. When the water level, is beyond their tongue's reach, they may take the risk of swimming and that is when they will get into trouble. As a beekeeper, I should anticipate this. Know where their usual watering holes are and provide floats for them to land on, drink their fill and take off easily. Good floats can be sponge, ice cream sticks or clean wooden stakes. The water the bees source from is hard to control. However, if I can establish a watering hole near the hive, I'll provide water that I can drink as well. The water should be changed regularly and the container scrubbed off debris and algae.

Varroa Testing: Alcohol Wash vs Sugar Dusting method

2010-08-03T23:39:00.000-07:00

It is the time of the year to determine varroa mite levels in the hive. I want to know the mite level to understand the severity of the infestation to determine the frequency of how often I should be treating the hive once I pull the supers out for harvesting.

In beekeeping literature, there are several methods to test for varroa mites and the method widely practiced in Vancouver is the alcohol wash. An alcohol wash requires you to capture 300bees about 1 cup into a bottle and pour anti-freeze wiper fluid (alcohol) to remove the varroa mites from the captured bees. The alcohol is poured out and the varroa mites flows out with it. You then count the varroa mites and multiply by 100 if you don't have brood or multiply by 600 if you have plenty of brood. The bees to be captured should be from the brood frames, so preferably nurse bees or drones.

I have been against this idea of alcohol wash and I was putting the idea of testing for varroa mites away all together. I thought why drown 300 precious nurse bees for this method. Nurse bees are the main food provider of the queen bee and growing larvae, as nurse bees vittelogen levels are the highest which is a component of the elixir we know as royal jelly. As some would know, the queen been is only fed with royal jelly. Nurse bees also support the growing larvae with worker jelly which are very demanding. At any one time in a healthy hive with a good laying queen, there are 8000+ larvae calling out for food. So drowning 300 nurse bees will reduce the workforce for an essential task in the hive. It is also wasteful killing the bees like this and not part of my beekeeping philosophy. As all other mite testing methods known in the field does not yield accurate mite levels. Sugar dusting is the kindest method. So recently, I stumbled upon the apiculture section of the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands of British Columbia website about varroa testing and I found the method that fits my style of beekeeping. Click here on Varroa Detection Method to reach the site.

Icing sugar method about 100-200 bees in the jar

The Icing sugar method requires a wide mouthed jar with the cap cut and a 1/8th wire mesh fitted onto the cut cap. I used a pickle jar and used a can opener to cut a large hole on the cap. I also bought a wire mesh colander from Daiso for $2. I cut the wire mesh out of the colander and there was enough mesh to create another 3 more testing jars. I used super glue to stick the wire mesh on the cap. Wait for it to dry for 15 mins and I got my wide mouth jar ready for varroa testing.

Find a frame with open brood with lots of nurse bees and be very sure that the queen is not on the frame. I think bees found on open brood frame is better for this method than bees on capped brood frames because the varroa mites attached on those bees are waiting for the opportunity to enter the brood comb before it gets capped to lay their eggs onto the bee larvae. The newly hatched varroa mite will then feed on the larvae. Therefore the infestation levels should be highest on frames with open brood as it has the best conditions for the varroa mite to continue its life cycle. After capturing enough bees about 100-300 or 1 cup of bees, cap the jar and sprinkle 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar through the wire mesh. I think even flour can be used, though I have not tried it yet. I took a video to show how I executed the testing method. I was really rough with the bees in the jar. Don't mind me. I feel bad myself but it is only to shake out all the varroa mite for an accurate count and to give the unlucky bees in the jar with varroa mites relieve once the mites gets detached. None of the bees died in this method. Even if some got injured and eventually died, it would be less than 10 compared to a 100% kill if using the alcohol wash. After shaking the sugar out of the jar, release the bees at the front of the hive entrance. Remember that nurse bees have never flown out of the hive before and may not know how to fly back to the hive if they get disoriented. So always return the bees as close to the hive as possible. Enjoy the video. The bees in the video are from Matilda.

I tested Bombay first and then Matilda. The results of the testing are

Bombay : 1 mite/100bees = Low infestation level
Matilda : 8 mites/100bees = High infestation level

Click on the picture for an enlargement. After all that shaking. The red/black specks are varroa. A white paper backing makes it easier to spot the red Varroa mites.

Was wondering why Matilda had such constant high infestation levels since last year. Even before I had problems with the queen. I am still wondering why. It is still too early for Queen Matilda II to correct this. It is just barely a month ago she took over from the drone laying queen. The drone laying queen has probably created the perfect condition for varroa mites to reproduce. Varroa mites love to lay their eggs and grow up with drone bees because the drone combs are more roomy due to the larger size of the drone compared to the tight comb of the worker bee and the pupae stage of the drone is longer than the worker bee by a couple of days. The extra days allow the baby varroa to feed on the host longer. Matilda definitely needs to be treated the 1st once the supers are off on Aug 15th.

If you like this post. Leave a comment or click on some of the advertisements on the right. Thanks for reading this post. Hope this was helpful and a plus if it was an interesting read.

Read more on the Sugar Dusting Method: http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/entomology/apiculture/PDF%20files/2.03.pdf

Hive Inspection on 24th July

2010-08-03T22:31:00.000-07:00

Did a normal hive inspection on 24th July before 2pm. Weather was sunny. I did not have much time so I laid out my task of the day so I won't forget what had to be done.

Task
Matilda

- Remove brick and move hive onto wooden pallets
-Move Queen excluder over 2nd empty super

Bombay
- Mark Queen
- Collect 100bees for varroa testing.

Camile
- Normal Check

Inspection Notes:

Camile
2 frames of honey/pollen
1 frame of capped brood
1/2 frame of eggs and brood in all stages
Pollen patty finished in 2 weeks. Installed patty on 10th July.
Queen spotted. Nucleus colony healthy. Spotted dozens of Varroa at bottom board.

Matilda
5 frames of honey
Queen Spotted and laying well

Bombay
No smoke used. Bees were still calm.
3 frames of comb honey and 4 frames of honey.
Marked queen. She seemed a little unconscious after being marked. I must have held her down a little too hard. Was really worried if she would do fine. After about 3 minutes, she got revived and ran around the frames. Ensured all legs were intact. Spotted lots of bees with Deformed wings. Suspect varroa level high. Must do Varroa testing on next inspection. Brood comb that was freezed 3 weeks ago have all been removed.
Noticed 3 frames without foundation being contructed. Bees were holding on to each other like acrobats forming the semi-circle shape of the foundation they are creating.
Good pollen flow.

Success in Requeening Matilda and Bombay

2010-07-18T18:15:00.000-07:00

I have to thank James Macdonald the owner of Armstrong Apiaries for rescueing Matilda from being shut down and that allowed me to maintain my 2 hive operation. Actually, I have 3 hives now as the former queen of Bombay rules the newly set up nucleus colony, Camille. I called James on Saturday morning 4th July and left a voice message to order queens. He called me back within an hour or two and was very assuring that he would be able to solve my queen problems and he guarantees gentle quality queens. He sent out 2 queens by priority mail on Monday afternoon and they arrived on Tuesday morning July 6th in the package below.

The brown bag with holes is where the 2 queen cages were packed in. I picked up the package from the Post Office at 9am and brought them to work. After work, I installed one of the queens into Matilda who had the drone laying queen removed 2 days before.

My new queens travelled by Canada Post comfortably for 446km from Armstong to Coquitlam. They were in transit for less than 18hrs.

In the queen cage there were 4 attendant workers and the queen. They were moving in the cage in a circular manner all day long. Super active and very different from the queens from West Coast Bee Supplies. The pheromone from the new queen was strong, that she already had a bee from Matilda who could not wait to pay her allegiance to her future queen. This bee on the cage was so mesmerized feeding the new queen that she did not even care what was going on around her.

The bees of Matilda could not wait to free their new queen and was instantly busy eating the candy barrier. Do you notice the majority of the bees in the photo facing the cage? They were clearly excited about their new queen.

3 days later, the new queen of Matilda has been released. This photo was taken yesterday. Notice the circle of attendants around her. She definitely commands alot of respect. From reading the frames she started laying almost the moment she came out of the cage as the oldest larvae is already about 8 days old. Look at the size of her. She is HUGE! Her laying pattern is excellent. I saw 2 frames of freshly laid eggs. What a feeling of satisfaction that the new queen has convincingly taken over the rule of Matilda. All my worries since April have been set aside and I can sleep well at night knowing that Queen Matilda II is running her hive well =). She moves around the frames in a steady and confident pace but when I attempted to pick her up to get marked, she can really sprint. I caught her anyway, firmly and carefully on her thorax.

She is now marked. She is in my queen marking cup waiting to dry the marker point on her back. The paint I use is a non-toxic ink. I marked her green which was 09' colors as I only have 2 hives and the color does not matter. If I had many more hives, I would follow the colors of the year. I mark my queens to ensure that if the hive created another queen to supercede her, I'll know that happened.

By the way, this is my 2nd hive inspection without gloves and have not got stung. My attitude towards them have changed. I am no more afraid or nervous around them, which I think they detected it before and was aggressive then. Now I am confident of my handling of the frames and less bees get injured on each inspection. Maybe one or 2 still. It used to be more than 10 injured bees per inspection. To safer and happier beekeeping for them.

Poppy Flowers in Bloom

2010-07-18T17:15:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, 10th July, I dedicated my whole day to weeding my garden plot and when I got to the gardens I noticed Poppy flowers were in full bloom. It was beautiful. I also heard buzzing noises coming from the flowers and saw that my honey bees were buzzing all over them. I read before that bees could not see red and were not attracted to red flowers but poppies although have bright red petals have yellow/white pollen stamens and yellow ovules which are color spectrum that bees can see. The purple design on the poppy is also another color spectrum that attracts them. This variety of poppy below has similar characteristics to the Afghan Poppies.

I noticed that when the sun is at zenith, it is the best time to take pictures. Positioning yourself to capture the shot is easier as you don't cast a shadow on the subject, the subject of the photo comes out very clear and it is also easier for the camera to focus.

Above there are 2 bees working in this flower. If you were a bee, wouldn't it be fun playing in this deep flower with lots of sweet poppy nectar.

Bee: Should I go home or visit another flower?

Bee: Another Flower!!! This is an Oriental Poppy above.

Hope you enjoyed the photos.

1st Official Hive Inspection and creating a Nuc

2010-07-13T23:30:00.000-07:00

On Sunday July 4th, Jacquie Bunse, the Bee Inspector from the Ministry of Agriculture of BC visited my hive for a hive inspection. I was delighted to have her over to be my mentor for the day and it was great to be able to ask all the questions I had about my hives. Jacquie has been a beekeeper for almost over 20years now and she was so willing to share as much knowledge she possibly could. Even after driving from Mt Currie in Pemberton to check on an apiary before coming to my apiary in Coquitlam, she seemed full of energy. She amazed me from the get go. She was not wearing gloves while going through my frames! I told her my bees can get aggressive especially that Sunday when the clouds were hanging low and it has been cool all day. I have been afraid of not wearing gloves for almost a year now. Getting stung on the fingers is really painful. The last time I got stung on my fingers was on my thumb and the next day it swelled so much that it feels like the skin around the thumb is going to explode. Since then, I have been using latex gloves that are thick enough to not allow the bee stings to penetrate the material. I was skeptical that she would not get stung and she did not. Well, she pointed out why my bees were aggressive towards me. She noticed I pulled the frames out too fast and it causes the bees on the other side of the frame not facing me to roll over and fall to the screened bottom. When they fall, they get agitated and start butting heads with me and try to sting wherever they can. So the trick was to take 1 or 2 frames out and lay it on the side of the hive to have more space while bringing out each frame and then pull out the other frames....SLOWLY! Since then, my last 2 inspections since July 4th, I have mustered the courage to not wear gloves. It was such a different experience beekeeping w/o gloves. I could feel the bees licking and crawling over my fingers,less of them got squashed and I felt more connected. I finally got to experience that my bees are really friendly and inviting as long as I had presence of mind while working with them. I owe this better experience of beekeeping to Jacquie. Thanks alot!

She thought me how to create a Nucleus hive which I used the replacement queen that Bob gave me, which by the way was a virgin queen that died in the cage when I checked again on July 6th. Probably because Bob did not add any attendant bees in the cage. I was expecting the virgin queen to die somehow as I knew not having attendants of her own, she would starve. Anyway, we created a 3 frame Nuc. We picked out a frame with honey and pollen stores on both sides, second frame with brood in all stages (some capped and some open brood)

and last frame with more brood and store. All the adhering bees on the frames were transferred over and we were looking out for frames that had mostly nurse bees.

Picked out another 2 more frames of nurse bees and shaked them on to the nuc box.

Thats a complete 3 frame nuc.

At the end of the hive inspection, no European Foul Brood or American Foul Brood was found. So the result is a positive :) My hives are healthy and is in good shape to receive their new queens. And I ended up with one more hive :)

Requeening Matilda Failed

2010-07-02T20:13:00.000-07:00

The queen I bought yesterday has died. She died from suffocation on the candy. There was too much candy in the cage. She 1st got stuck half an hour after picking her up but she freed herself. The picture taken yesterday shows she was alright. At 630am, when I checked the queen cage, she was stuck. I was hoping that she would free herself again later. Every hour I checked. I had such a narrow view of her through the cage as her attendants were blocking and she never moved or struggle. When I got to the gardens, I had to investigate rather than wait 3 days till the bees eat the candy barrier to release her. I cut the cage open and found her head was covered with candy that has hardened. I tried reviving her by cleaning the candy off using Saline solution but it did not work. I'm at a lost right now. I'm too frustrated to go back to Bob and get back my $25. When I called him to tell him about the status of the queen, he blamed me for my handling. I really don't care what he says. Its as if I wanted to kill the queen. Matilda is now queenless. Will probably have to combine the hive soon and that would have to be done by Sunday. Absolutely dissapointed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My resolve is now stronger to be self sufficient in rearing my own queens next year.

The Queen has arrived

2010-07-02T01:16:00.000-07:00

Just like the Queen of England who is in Canada now for Canada Day, my queen has arrived from West Coast Bee Supplies. What a day. I've been calling Bob about a month ago asking for queens. I think I've bugged him over the week several times checking if he was ready to sell me one. So finally on Tuesday when I called, he said he's got some. I made arrangements to reserve a queen and to pick it up today 1st July. I was excited. Finally I could see the light at the end of the tunnel with the drone laying queen problem I've had for the past 2 months. Can you imagine, Matilda has been with a drone laying queen for 2 mths and on Tuesday when I checked, they kicked her out, I hope, since I'm introducing a new queen. Well there can be more messy problems in the hive and mine aint' that bad. Nao who I met coincidentally at West Coast Bee Store was telling me she had her 2nd swarm. Thats what I call a messy problem. Glad that she managed to catch her swarm again. I'm most afraid now of a laying worker or worst several of them in Matilda.

I made all this arrangement to get to No.6 Rd in Richmond. Booked the Car Co-Op vehicle for several hrs and prepared the hive for the royal welcome. When I walked into the store, Bob was telling Nao how he found this 'dead' queen outside. When Nao left, I told Bob I was here to pick up the queen, he said he was sold out.... I lost my temper! My heart sank, time and money wasted. Frustrated, I dropped a few F bombs. He is clearly unreliable! As I was desperate for a queen. He said I could have the 'dead' one. She looked weak but mostly chilled as she was probably in the open for so long. I was put on a spot to decide and take a risk of buying a 'dead' queen. I agreed on buying her as long he guarantees that she is mated. So off he goes to collect some worker bees as her attendant. I observed he was taking foragers. He was catching bees that were at the entrance of the hive. A good beekeeping outfit selling queens will show you the mated queen laying and take nurse bees as her attendant. Nurse bees are preferred as they are young and are able to feed the queen with royal jelly and will be able to nourish the queen while she travels in the queen cage. Whereas Foragers are old bees and do not produce anymore royal jelly coz of its low in Vittelogen levels (Oliver. R, Scientific Beekeeping).

Its been about 12hrs since I picked up the new queen. Covered the queen cage with a damp paper towel and stored the cage in my jacket closet in a pocket of a jacket to keep the queen warm. She is active and all the attendants are doing well. They seemed bloated with water. But I think that should be alright. Will be installing the queen Friday evening after work.

This queen cage above is a slow-release method for introducing the queen into Matilda. It is a recommended method so that the hive can get used to the new queen's pheromone and the queen is protected from possible assassination by the the laying worker or other workers. Jackie Bunns have recommended that I place the queen cage next to open brood which I will be transferring from Bombay. I think the pheromones from the larvae will also suppress any workers from assuming the role of laying eggs and also the queen would spread her pheromones through the nurse bees to the larvae causing the hive to accept her. One way to tell if u have laying worker is the drones that emerge are smaller in size than normal drones but will still be sexually viable. In the picture, I"m holding the tip of the cage that contains candy. The candy acts like a barrier to protect the queen and for the host bees to eat through the candy to release the queen. Approximately 6 days to release. The queen will be hungry enough by then to solicit food from the workers and spread more of her pheromone.

Vancouver clearly has a shortage of reliable bee suppliers. At this time, I would only recommend Honeyland Canada at Pitt Meadows runned by Dr Bee for my beekeeping needs.

My 1st Beekeeping Club Meeting and a little bit about Chalkbrood.

2010-06-13T12:08:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I attended my 1st club meeting with the Richmond Beekeeper's Association. It started at 1pm but I only got there at 1.40pm. I got a little lost in UBC Campus. I asked the bus driver of the C20 bus if his route goes to UBC farm, he said yes but he dropped me in front of the Totem Pole park. I got directions from the friendly staff at the Botanical Gardens and relied on my Blackberry Google maps to walk to UBC farm. It was a 20min walk on a beautiful sunny day. On route to UBC Farms, I noticed that UBC seeds their lawn with white clover and its everywhere. I was walking downwind and the sweet scent of the clover filled the air. And I was thinking, the bees Allen Garr keeps in UBC has excellent forage in clover.

Meeting other beekeepers is always a comforting feeling. I don't feel I'm alone and I can share what is going on in my hive and I get to hear what is going on in the hive of others. It is always nice to learn from others. Especially, when I had problems identifying problems such American/European Foulbrood, Chalkbrood or Apis Ceranae. I was never sure if I had any of these problems. Yesterday, Allen showed me what chalkbrood looked like. I always thought those dried up larvae was just one of those larvae among the thousand other larvae that was forgotten to be fed by the nurse bees and dried up. Chalkbrood is actually a fungi that is present in the brood frames. This is what I found out about chalkbrood.

The spores of Ascosphaera apis are ingested with the brood food as the larva feeds itself. The germination of the spores and proliferation of the fungus, breaks out of the larva and covers it with a white mycelium.
Spores of Ascosphaera apis remain viable for years. Consequently, the infection source could
be present in the cells used to rear brood. Chalkbrood appears to be most prevalent in the
spring when the brood area is expanding, and the weather is cool and unsettled. Generally,
the disease is found in those areas of the brood nest where sufficient nurse bees are
unavailable to maintain the brood nest temperature.
Chalkbrood normally does not destroy a colony. However, it can prevent normal population
build-up when the disease is serious. No treatment is presently available for the control of
chalkbrood. In severe cases, re-queening is helpful, as well as the addition of sealed brood to
the weakened colony. The disease usually disappears or is reduced as the air temperature
increases in the summer, and pollen and nectar flows begin. (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, n.d.)

The white looking chalk is a larvae that has been affected by a fungus that dries it up.Click the picture for a closer look.

I will write more about how I manage health in the hive in the next few postings.

We had someone speak about Beekeeping Safety. Never knew that roll on deodarant actually helps in taking away the pain in bee stings. Interesting. Will try rolling on some deodorant on the sting spot the next time I get stung. Spot heating also helps. She said that heat actually deteoriates and breaks down the bee venom in the sting. Here are some pictures at the bee club meeting and completing the frame making "competition". I had good fun yesterday.

References

Vermont Agency of Agriculture: Plant Industry Division (n.d). Chalkbrood Disease. Retrieved from : http://www.vermontagriculture.com/ARMES/plantindustry/apiary/documents/Chalkbrood07rev.pdf