The Honey Factory

[MarkJr]

I had a seizure in the truck Friday, and scared the shit out of my boys and husband. Everyone is being nice to me, helping me out and doing my chores. My youngest tells me he loves me every couple hours...so I'm milking this a bit.

I guess there’s a silver lining to everything!! Hope you’re well. Seizures are scary as hell to me.

 

[karenerwin]

Well I got into the hives today. The split hive is very weak. No honey, very little pollen, little to no brood. I did see 6 bees with mites. There are only about 3 frames of bees.
I will start feeding them tonight.

The original hive is going strong but has lots of small hive beetles. I did go ahead and set up the trap with the vegetable oil. It was tricky trying to make it level so the oil covered the bottom tray ( since we purposefully had the hive stand sloped a bit for drainage).
I also killed as many of the @*% beetles as I could. This hive has some honey, some pollen and some brood on most of the frames! However, there isn't as much honey (by far) as I think there should be.

Both hives had bees that were pulling immature bees out of cells and killing them. I am guessing that they are killing drones? like someone else mentioned.

I will post pictures from my phone later. I guess I need to feed both hives. This is my first year keeping bees so maybe they don't need as much honey as I think they do, but I am pretty sure they need more than what they have. I did not take any honey from either hive this year.

 

[shawluvsbirds]

I'm not actually sure. My Mom passed away on September 6th and we just had her funeral today, Saturday, September 19th. So I haven't had the chance to check on them since she passed.
The small hive beetle traps and the clear hive covers I ordered weeks ago finally arrived yesterday. I'm not sure when I will be able to add them to the hives because our temperatures have really dropped. Today's high was 69 degrees and the low is supposed to be 44 degrees.
I have seen them out and about ( the bees that is). We have a decent sized patch of ragweed and the bees have been all over that as well as a little bit of some weed with lots of small white flowers on them.
I was a bit perplexed by the clear covers as they are just clear plastic domes that have no way to attach to the hive. I asked my husband to build a wooden frame to attach the plastic dome to so that I can lower it over the top of the hive. I am a bit concerned that the temperatures are getting too cool for me to actually use the clear domes now.
I'm also not sure if I still need to put the shb trapes on now or not. I was thinking that I had read or heard somewhere that the colder temperatures drive them out too, but I have no idea if that is true or not or whether the bees keep the inside of the hive warm enough so that it doesn't really apply anyway.

I really need to see if my mentor is available to come over and check the hives with me and help me to understand what I need to do and when I need to do it before winter actually gets here.

I am hopeful that I can suit up tomorrow and at least open the hive ( if it gets above 70) and check the status of the bees, the beetles, the honey, and whatever else I need to be checking!

How are your bees doing? (I'm going to go back and see if you reported about them before this post)!

 

[karenerwin]

A walking stick must have dropped down from a tree onto my bee veil. I moved it over to my garden once it climbed down on to my arm. I didn’t want to squish it!

These are the bees from the split. They had drawn comb in the 2nd brood box but that was it.

They do have some capped brood.

If you zoom in on the bee on the top right you will see that it has a small mite (that’s what I think the small brown tick looking thing is).
I saw a total of 6 bees in this hive with these attached.

I don’t think that any of the bees in this picture have any mites.

The bee on the lower right side in the picture above

I finally found the Queen in my original hive!!

Both hives had this going on on the screen bottom. I am guessing they are tossing out the drone larva .

This frame is from the stronger hive. I don’t know if you can see places where I’ve mashed comb while trying to kill small hive beetles.

Unfortunately this hive has a lot of shb No beetles are visible in the pictures because I tried my best to smash all of them! But they were in the top cracks, crawling down in the empty cells and in the dark crevices on the sides, top, and bottom.

Another picture of the Queen. It’s cool how her mark is not solid.

This frame from the strong hive shows a little bit of capped honey, a bit of capped brood. It has uncapped honey too.

This last picture is of the clear plastic dome. I’m going to have my hubby attached wooden sides so that it drops down like a top cover.
I’ll use it next summer to get more light in to help keep the beetles out. That is if either hive makes it through the winter.

 

[karenerwin]

What do you guys suggest I try to get rid of the Varroa mites?

 

[MarkJr]

Varroa treatment on such a weak group I’d use oxalic acid. I prefer vapor, but dribble will work.

Hives fight off the beetles better if they’re crowded. That hive would do very much so better over winter in a 5 frame nuc colony. Less real estate to chase the damn beetles around too.

 

[duluthralphie]

I fed my bees today.

It was a little windier than I like, but it was about 75 degrees.

The nice hive had about 2 inches of syrup left in their gallon. They were not happy about my removing the jug. But they did not attack me.

I used a fair amount of smoke. Their was one bee that was very unhappy when I put the filled jug back in. Why she decided to sit right where the jug sits is beyond me. She was half squished, so I practiced euthanasia on her.

The second hive true to their name went nuts, I used lots and lots of smoke, but just taking the cinder block off the cover send them into attack formation. When I lifted the cover even more came rushing out.

They had no syrup left. I refilled the jug and put it back in. I have no idea if I squished any or not, I kind of hope I did.

I should have plenty of cells of sugar water to move to the nice hive when the mean hive meets its demise.

 

[shawluvsbirds]

I fed my bees today.

It was a little windier than I like, but it was about 75 degrees.

The nice hive had about 2 inches of syrup left in their gallon. They were not happy about my removing the jug. But they did not attack me.

I used a fair amount of smoke. Their was one bee that was very unhappy when I put the filled jug back in. Why she decided to sit right where the jug sits is beyond me. She was half squished, so I practiced euthanasia on her.

The second hive true to their name went nuts, I used lots and lots of smoke, but just taking the cinder block off the cover send them into attack formation. When I lifted the cover even more came rushing out.

They had no syrup left. I refilled the jug and put it back in. I have no idea if I squished any or not, I kind of hope I did.

I should have plenty of cells of sugar water to move to the nice hive when the mean hive meets its demise.

I am worried about you and your mean bees.

 

[MarkJr]

Kinda like a rooster. Deal with them now, it only gets worse.

 

[duluthralphie]

Kinda like a rooster. Deal with them now, it only gets worse.

They will be examining the inside of two large heavy duty lawn bags in a couple weeks. I want their honey and sugar filled cells to feed the nice bees over winter.