New Hive--Los Gatos--4/19/07

Yesterday, set up new hive at the Byrne's house. All went well, except the temp was a little low and the wind was too high. It was okay when I was doing it, but the wind got worse afterwards and into the night. I'm worried--maybe beyond reason--about bees getting blown from the hive and not having a sense of where to go. Hopefully most just stayed in the box.

Boxes of Bees

BeeKind had me scheduled to pick up bees today, then I got a call from them a few days back and they said I could pick them up either Friday or Saturday. I had seen that the temp was supposed to drop for a few days starting today (Saturday) so I decided to go out yesterday and get them. Picked up my two boxes plus:

1. A Serge inner cover
2. A telescoping outer cover
3. a number of large and medium follower boards
4. an entrance reducer
5. Cork board for the feeders
6. A baseball cap w/ a skep on it that says, "Honey For Health"

I could have done w/out the baseball cap, but in for a penny, in for a pound. I had two hives last year, and while I had some extra hardware around from nucs and having built my hives up, I needed stuff for this year's third hive. I had had Rachel pick me up a new screen bottom board and a feeder earlier this week then I realized I needed more, like a cover.

But I need to learn how to make some of this stuff, or it's going to get too expensive: good bottom boards are nearly $50 dollars. And I could definitely learn to make follower boards.

Before I went out there, I set up the hives:

First one where Carmel was last year, under the trees, but facing south this time. Pro's: on our property and easy access, dappled light in the summer time, bees seemed happy last summer. Cons: Probably a little too shady for the winter. But I'm telling myself I'm going to get them strong this summer, not make last year's mistakes, so they'll go into winter strong. This one will be named Queens, after where Rachel was born.

Second will be on a little hill behind Stacy and Peter's house. Pro's: Open space, sunny in the winter, room for another if she splits. Cons: May end up being too much sun in the summer, and should look into creating a visor over the entrance a la Serge LaBesque. This hive will be named Los Gatos, after the town I was born.

I installed Queens yesterday. Put the queen in then just put the box on top of the frames, put an empty deep on top of that. I've been told that they'll just march out after the queen and then in a couple days I'll take the box out. We'll see. No sign of flight yet today, but it has a chill in the air.

This afternoon, I'll go put Los Gatos in the same way.

Checking San Francisco--4/10/08

Running late again. Luckily I recorded this hive entry. Looking at general fitness, brood, queen, hive build up, mites, observation board.

Looked at board first. It had about a hundred dead bees on it. I later figured out that this was because I had put the board in when the bees were still getting oriented, and many of them had been trying to enter through the screen, where they smelled the hive. When I'd put the board in place it had trapped them in. Bummer. There was pollen on the board as well, sign of preparing for brood.

A lot of bees drinking the syrup. Building spur comb.

Went right to brood box. Nice centered pattern of bees on the top bars. Looking at the middle frame, I see a little bit of queen cup (this should be checked on at next inspection), uncapped honey/syrup, pollen, capping honey. Then I saw eggs. Probably all fine, but need to check in ten days on the capped brood, make sure it's worker and not drone brood from a laying Queen. Pollen up against the eggs.

They hadn't yet filled out the seven frames I'd given them. Just fine with what they have.

When I take a box off, always remember to know which is front, which is back.

These bees seem small to me. I wonder if they came from a small-cell hive. They ARE Marin bees.



No sign of mites.

San Francisco-First Inspection

The Hive's name is San Francisco, by the way. The first 2 hives were named Carmel and Chicago after the towns my parents were from, and Esmé asked me to name the next one after the town she was born in.

Sunny, medium mid-60's, windy.

I saw pollen going in today, and a bee wrestling another bee out of the entrance. Both good signs. Also they had drained one side of the feeder and were working on the other side.

I had set up the hive like this: one deep with 7 frames and follower boards, one medium with the same, then feeder. Entrance reducer on large.

Inside--nice to start the smoker--I took off the medium and saw a nice clump centered on the top bars. Checking those frames, I saw syrup/nectar stored, pollen. I saw a drone in there, who I assumed was a visitor.

I saw no eggs or brood, though. No queen.

I will check back on Wednesday, 4/9.

I also put in the observation board on the bottom, and I'll take a look at that then too.

Didn't notice mites, but I forgot to look.

New Hive--San Francisco

I caught my first swarm the other day, Thursday, 4/3. I'm on the beekeeping association's swarm list, but I hadn't known. Going into Esmé's violin lesson and I got a call from Corte Madera that there was a swarm in the neighbor's yard. They confirmed w/ the neighbor that it was okay to go in the yard and I went down after the class. Swarm had been described as about as big as a football, and I would say it was a little bigger. The woman who called me--Cynthia, I have her contact info--told me that another swarm had landed in the same yard a couple years ago. It was on a branch about 10' up in a tree. I borrowed Cynthia's ladder, put the swarm box on the ladder platform, gave the branch a shake and they dropped on down. I got off the ladder, slid the lid on top and put the box on the ground, opened the entrance and a little slit on the top of the box--an old nuc box with a frame of comb w/ some honey in there (I think my bees died of "first year beekeepers disease and too much rain. Hope I'm right and not giving the new ones some disease). A couple minutes later, bees were lining up at the entrances, fanning with their butts in the air. Textbook. I felt great. I ended up giving a couple more shakes, and made some useless attempts at trying to scoop up the last little handful. I was going to leave the box and come back the next day, but by the end it felt like I had most of them, and it was too far to go and I had too much work on my professional plate anyway. Got them home. That night me and Esmé and Rachel went into the garage and just listened to them humm like a motor. The next afternoon--about 22 hours after I had caught them--I put them in their new hive, and gave them 1:1 syrup. I'll feed them for about 2 weeks or until it feels like solid new brood.

Catching up.

Both Hives died over the winter. Disappointed and sad, but if I take too much time on it now, I'll never use this blog as my log.