Garden Bee Yard

This is a quick of my Garden Bee Yard after making all my Russian Splits etc.

I have 31 hives at this point...

Entombed Cells?

Interesting study on entombed cells...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/04/honeybees-entomb-hives

Swarms!!!!

It seems things always happen when you dont have time... LOL

This past Friday i was rushing out the door for a dinner at the extension office and heading to a hunt club work day after that... well walking across the yard i saw a small swarm hanging on a limb on a dogwood, about 1.5 - 2 lbs of bees, so i hived that one. then while walking down the sidewalk about 10 minutes later i saw a much larger swarm (about 4lbs or more) of bees on a boxwood next tot he sidewalk. Seems no matter how many splits you make, how often you inspect, you always can miss something. I have yet to inspect all my hives to figure it out, but maybe they came from feral hives i dont know about or from hives from swarms last year i missed??? who knows, either way today i have 25 hives with 10 Russian queens arriving this week for a total of 35, although i might sell 2 to a friend a work... so maybe 33 hives...

Great Small Hive Beetle Document

See attached document http://www.wasba.org/SHB.pdf

Sunday's Hand's On Bee Class

I will be hosting a Hand's On bee class at my house this Sunday starting at Noon. It will included actual hive inspections, making a split, installing a nuc, and installing a package.

If you would like to attend contact me at 804-690-7055 and i will give you directions.

Please bring any food or drinks, chairs, etc and you MUST bring gloves, veil, long pants, etc. I.E. BASIC  PROTECTION.

Crazy Nuc UPDATE and CONCLUSION !!!!!

Well after a few more days of observation etc on all my hives I have come to the conclusion that the large population of bees in the nuc was in fact forager drift over several days. The other nucs although not as packed, are packed! In hind sight I was lucky I did this with the onset of the cold weather blast which could have crippled my little hives etc. if I had not given it the foragers.

Looking quickly at the parent hives that I moved over and stole foragers from, they are faring well with little set back. It seems the drones must have chilled on the outer frames due to this cold weather as I have a small number, maybe 20-30 drones at most, laying outside pulled after they chilled to death… I consider this a small lost to sustain a nuc which will continue to lose bees over the next month and a half roughly while the queen hatches, matures, mates, lays her eggs, and hatches her first brood 21 days later… (Basically 13 days to hatch + 7 days to mature and mate + 21 days for the brood to hatch)…

I highly recommend using the “swap” procedure when making nucs or when you have weak hives…

CRAZY NUC HIVE

Attached you will find pics of my crazy nuc from yesterday. Here is a little time line and history to add confusion.

·         Weekend before last I put a weak hive with about 300 bees and a queen into a nuc box to help them preserve heat.

·         This past Saturday I moved them up to my garden area and moved a strong hive during the day and placed this week on there to give it all the foragers.

·         Sat and Sunday was uneventful and normal amount of bee traffic

·         Yesterday I got home and said “What the heck” they are getting robbed, well upon further looking they weren’t and bees were hanging out like mid summer

·         Well I got my jacket on and lifted the top to find about 2 inches of bees piled on the top and every frame covered not to mention bees below the screen bottom, on the front, etc

·         I swapped the frames into a single deep for room and the hive still covered all ten frames, piled outside all night, and were just unbelievable.

The only thing I can think of is a hive swarmed and took over, or a hive I lost (just was empty weekend before last after I had inspected it 2 weeks prior and found a queen etc), I am thinking either a hive swarmed somewhere in my yard and usurpatation (whatever, read Wyatt Magnum’s recent article in ABJ…) or the hive that left was sitting out somewhere waiting for a home and here was this little weak nuc in its original location so it “went home”. Either way a hive that had a queen, goofball size brood pattern and less than a cup full of bees is now about 4-5 lbs of bees!

These creatures never stop amazing me…

Below is basically a order of pics from the time i got home (6:30 pm) till i was done and cam back just before dark...