Anyone else do this?

[Shawn]

Long back story:

In August I heard a swarm gathering from our hives. Now, I told the girls that probably wasn't their best idea, but anyway...  DH said, "Let them go."  Well, you know, I couldn't do THAT.     I probably could have encircled said swarm with both my hands it was soooo small. Nonetheless, I caught them and hived them in a nuc box. I figured I could house them while deciding what to do with them. I gave them syrup in a frame feeder. Unfortunately, the frame feeders seem to drown as many bees as it feeds, so I wasn't too keen on keeping it filled.  (Boy, it's not hard to spot the queen when there's only, like, 75 bees in a box.  )   A week later, they had done so little on their undrawn foundation, I gave them a full frame of capped brood with nurse bees from a booming hive. That boosted things along nicely.

I finally made a modification involving styrofoam and refilled the feeder that to see if it helped. (The jury's still out on that.)

Yesterday I decided to move them into a regular sized box so I could put the better feeder on and pour the syrup to them. I decided to see what they could do if I fed them hard. Figuring, worst case, I'll combine them with another hive for the winter. I know I have one that the queen was questionable in, so that's definitely a candidate for a combine.
So I made a double batch of syrup, moved them into their big girl box and fed them.   I labeled this Hive D - for Dumb.  If they survive, it's because they had a dumb idea and I saved them.  If they don't, it's because we both had a dumb idea. 

So now, my original question. About an hour later, I really wanted to go back out there and see what they had accomplished. Ok, I know they can't do much in an hour, but it's the whole idea that you can't see what they're doing in there... drives me nuts sometimes. I want to see them get all excited because there's all this room and someone just gave them a whole bunch of syrup to draw foundation with, so everybody pitch in and we'll get this rolling...
Maybe I got bored over the long weekend and should just call it a night.

[clux]

Lmao that's awesome keep the hive updates coming!

[lew92]

You aren't supposed to go back in the hive for at least a week. If they are stressed out too much, they'll swarm again, and the more often you open it, the more bees get crushed in the process - and more chance of crushing the queen.

If you have 2 iffy hives and don't want to get rid of one of the queens, you can combine them by putting a queen excluder between two boxes with 2 sheets of newspaper. By the time the workers chew through the paper, they will be acquainted, and the queens won't fight.

The combined hive is stronger than the individual ones are.

Sorry if you already know this!

[elnini]

Interesting about the paper.

[lew92]

Sept 8, 2015 17:54:48 GMT -5 elnini said:

Interesting about the paper.

Without the paper, the workers will fight. The time it takes them to chew through the paper gives them the time to get used to the smell of the others and not fight it out.

[DixietheJersey]

Usually, when we get a swarm after July we ether combine it with another swarm, or put it back in the original hive. When we combine them we sprinkle powdered sugar or pour liquid syrup of the bees, they get used to each other by the time they are clean but the one of the queens usually get killed. But you know, it's your hive, you do what you want

and good luck!

[Shawn]

Getting ready to pop in them on Saturday and see who needs to shack up with whom.

On another note regarding my neighbor, who we got started in bees a couple years ago. We were trying to give him something (the woodenware for 2 hives) because he always tends our farm when we're gone and won't take any $$. He has a terribly bad back. He told DH today he wants us to take his 2 hives (at least one has a loaded super) all the extra supers, his containers, smoker, etc. for $200. Gosh, I hate to see him bail out, but at least he's had the experience of it. So now, I need to check his to see what needs they have for the winter and keep that in mind whilst dealing with Hive D.

[Shawn]

I'm a little behind on the updates.

I fed them hard for a couple weeks and they were building nicely. A couple weeks ago we had another hive that I mentioned above, that was not doing so hot. DH and I searched through this hive, which was already 3 brood boxes deep (the product of an earlier consolidation) and we could not find the queen in that hive. It was absolutely bursting with bees though. The little bit of capped worker brood we found was scattered weirdly, so I chalked it up to a failing queen. (The last time I saw that type of brood pattern, I didn't requeen and that hive died that winter - lesson learned.)

So Hive D, was set on top of the weird hive with a newspaper between them. I was a bit nervous since we couldn't find the queen in the bottom boxes. I hoped the bees in the bottom 3 would realize the queen in the upper box was a superior queen and ball the failing one, but I also realized that the majority of bees might favor the failing queen.

Sunday we popped the top for a look and after digging down through the boxes, found a nice, perfect compact cluster of capped worker brood! Hurrah! It appears they kept the good queen and herded her down three stories and she's where she needs to be for winter. Their 2nd brood box was so packed with honey it was nearly impossible for my sister and me to move it off. We took the useable frames out of the former Hive D and put them down below, removing empty frames, and condensed them back down to 3 boxes. As it is, if this hive overwinters, which now it should, they will be absolutely busting the seams come springtime. I will be prepared to make a split at the first opportunity.

On another note, about a week ago, DH took 90 pounds of honey from 2 other hives that we didn't touch in August. In August they had a lot of uncapped honey, so we left it. Since we had a nice fall flow from Golden Rod, etc. they had packed those 3 supers to the gills. We actually took about 34 frames, as we had 4 frames from one super that we extracted, too.
Now we've got feeders on 2 and are letting them back fill their open brood area with syrup. I'm trying to be more proactive with my hives this winter to ensure they winter well. I'll make candy boards for them as soon as I get to Goodwill and locate a pan that I can use for dedicated candy board making.

Gotta love those bees!

[Deleted]

Wow! So fascinating!!! Thanks for sharing all this with us! Loving learning about these amazing creatures!!!

[dunderi]

I'm loving reading this. Thank you so much for sharing! I'm getting my first hive in the next couple of weeks (I'll be running eight frame ideal boxes all round) and just love reading about anyone's apiary work

[mikiz]

Love hearing about the bees, I can't wait until I have enough land in the type of country where they'll survive

[Shawn]

Nov 4, 2015 15:56:39 GMT -5 Nonesuch Melissa said:

I am seriously coveting these...
www.honeyflow.com

I wouldn't be coveting too much. There are some things about those that aren't real practical. You can liken that to a robot milking your cow. Is it going to know your cow is "off" that day?
Anyone who sacrifices taking a look inside a hive is probably not going to have bees all that long. How do you know there's enough honey for the bees to overwinter, if you don't take a look? I'm not saying it's not a cool idea, or that it doesn't work. Just saying it's oversimplified to turn a tap and have honey.

[dunderi]

Can we please, just asking, not turn this into yet another thread with bees that becomes about that stupid invention? I was enjoying reading about actual bee keeping. ..

sad you've an allergy though Mel. I got stung the other week for the first time in years and was so relieved to not feel it or have a reaction.

my beek mentor has a swarm he is keen to pass on to me! He said they're mean bees, but then all his are but if I can get it going right and re Queen with a nice calm friendly Italian lady, then maybe breed some Queens to swap back for his most. .. um. .. proactively defensive hives perhaps?

There's swarm catching talk here everywhere right now, that time of year I guess.

[Shawn]

Nonesuch Melissa Well, that's one way to look at it for sure! LOL

[Shawn]

Nov 5, 2015 2:18:20 GMT -5 dunderi said:

There's swarm catching talk here everywhere right now, that time of year I guess.

It's always fascinating to me how you're gearing up for spring and we're prepping for winter. Kind of cool though, to hear your winter stories when we're burning up and vice versa.

Glad you've got a mentor close by. I love the gal that has helped me. Occasionally she teaches a beeswax lotion/soap making class. It's on my list of things to get done, but last winter when she offered it I had a 16 yo wanting a BD party instead. Maybe this year.

My neighbor, the one we will buy his bees back from, kept describing a mean hive that he would get multiple stings from when he had to work with them. My sister and I checked those, too, on Saturday and he does have a mean girl hive. They were very aggressive. We didn't get stung, but he works them with a long-sleeved t-shirt instead of a bee pull over, so I can see why he's getting stung. If that hive overwinters well, it will be a prime candidate for a new queen. His second hive we opened was just as calm as could be. My sister (not much bee experience) was even struck by the difference in them.

[Nonesuch Melissa]

Nov 5, 2015 2:18:20 GMT -5 dunderi said:

Can we please, just asking, not turn this into yet another thread with bees that becomes about that stupid invention? I was enjoying reading ....

Your wish is my command... Post deleted... Sorry.

[BasleeBackwoodsFarm]

Would love to have a couple of hives. We had probably a hundred bees or more at our humming bird feeders this year and would watch them go into the timber. I am sure they have a hive in a hollow log/tree somewhere. These were very sweet bees. Had one that came to us every evening while setting on the porch and would just crawl all over DH & I. We named him Einstein. lol

[dunderi]

Sorry Mel didn't mean to snipe :/

you can sure tell the difference between the more calm hives and the aggressive ones -

I use plenty of smoke on myself, make sure I'm clean, no perfume etc but with some hives you just all of a sudden have a real face full of bees, and they sound different too. angry bees.

The calm ones it's two puffs of pine needle smoke and they just go about their business almost like you're not even there. It's fascinating!

It was the cranky ones that found the tiny tear in my suit, went inside, down the leg, up inside the bottom of the jeans, and finally stung me - four stings in total. I was prepared for a reaction (had phenergan in the car) but a quick dab of tea tree oil and they didn't even itch.

[Shawn]

Very belated update:

We split the combined Hive (D/A) on 4/10. The split was D and they had to make a new queen. They did and took off and have done well this summer. Not sure they have any honey now to harvest because we had a month of drought that killed the clover off prematurely. They may make fall honey if we get any decent rains.

The original hive (A) has swarmed multiple times. It seems no matter what we did, the swarms just kept coming. It sounds great, if you catch and hive them, but I think ultimately our honey production will be really down considering the sheer # of hives we have.

The 2 hives we bought back from the neighbor were doing well at spring check. 2 weeks ago, DH checked them and the mean girl hive is doing well, but the other is a dead out. Looks like small hive beetle. Those hives are heavily shaded in the afternoon, so I'm thinking that probably contributed. We will take honey off the good hive and then haul it home later once it cools. This heat is just too much to work in.

[lew92]

Thanks for the update. I miss having bees, but know that the past three years would not have been good for it anyway. Maybe next spring!