71 replies to this topic

[ConcordAntman]

Last week’s hive inspection was pretty benign. There was nothing much to report. There was a fair amount of activity around the hive entrance with only one ant on the inner cover and none in the hive! Perhaps the Vaseline works as an ant barrier. 

 

Though we’re having a warm, wet spring and summer with flowers in bloom, along with the rest of the local beekeepers, I’m still feeding my hive and they seem to still be partaking. A refill is obviously in order. 

My bees still demonstrate a poor understanding of bee space. The little comb they’ve built out in the second box has bridged the westerly-facing (bottom of the shot) frames together. Any attempt to separate them spills honey and larvae. Since I’m loathe to risk that, those frames will stay stuck together. I’ll find out today what’s happened over the week and let you know next time. 

 

[ConcordAntman]

We’ve been away since June 30th for our 44th anniversary! I did an inspection and feeder refill before we left and my neighbor (the one with the 3 swarms) refilled my feeder for me. I got back to a happy hive with no drama. After I got over my jet lag, I did a refill and an inspection on the 13th. 

 

Overall, no surprises. Half the frames are built out on the west-facing side of the hive with all phases of brood, honey, and pollen.

 

The space under the feeder is fully built out with comb. Even with the feeder empty, the box is heavier than either brood box! I’ve now realized why my bees built out the space under the feeder. Another newbie error… From catalogue pictures, I thought a honey super was the same depth as a box for a top feeder. In fact, top feeder boxes are about 2 inches shorter. The added space was all the encouragement my bees needed to build out brood space. This is an old picture from a few weeks back. 

The challenge now is whether I should dismantle this feeder comb and “transplant” it to the unbuilt frames in the brood boxes or leave it until next season and remove the comb when I replace the feeder box with the appropriate sized one. Doing a transplant now would kill brood and waste honey at the midpoint of our spring-summer season here in the Northeast US. I’m concerned that it might be be better to have brood and stores for the hive to overwinter than to have a textbook looking hive. I’ll have to think on this…

 

That’s all for now. Any suggestions generously accepted!

[ANTdrew]

My gut says to trust the bees and let them build up that brood and honey for now.

[ConcordAntman]

That’s what I’m thinking too!

[ConcordAntman]

I’m rather overdue for a report. We were away for a spell in August and our weather has been insane! In the intervening weeks we’ve had some as yet, unexplained drama. August 9th, I did a routine inspection with nothing out of the ordinary. The same half built out frames in the two lower boxes with 8 frames worth of comb, honey, and brood underneath the top feeder. I placed more rhubarb and buttoned things up. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

The next morning, I awoke to a cloud of honeybees filling my yard nearly 30-40’ up. WHAT JUST HAPPENED!! I shot a video but stills from it don’t do justice to the scene. Was it robbing or was my hive absconding?!? After 10-15 minutes, the bees ascended to the treetops and seemed to disappear. I was reluctant to open the hive again after just 24 hours so I waited a day to check and found nothing amiss. This was the beginning of more weirdness! Seven to 10 days later, my neighbor a quarter mile up the road with two hives texted me to say there was a cloud of bees surrounding her hives. She covered her larger hive with a wet sheet to discourage robbing. The next day when she checked her hives, her small hive had been spared but the larger hive had been ransacked! Honey and pollen robbed, comb destroyed, brood and bees dead!! Out of an abundance of caution, I installed a robbing screen on my hive at my next inspection. Once again, nothing was amiss.

 

 

 

Three days later, about 30’ up in the trees, I spotted this swarm!

 

 

They remained in my yard, adjacent to my hive for 3 weeks and just dispersed to parts unknown earlier this week. So, what was it? A feral swarm raiding local hives? An absconding hive looking to top off their stomachs while looking for a new home? Your guess is as good as mine!!

Edited by ConcordAntman, September 8 2023 - 7:06 PM.

[ANTdrew]

That’s wild! Very cool to see, though (from a safe distance!).

[DRpepper]

Most likely what you saw was a swarm. Which includes a queen and several thousand workers to help the queen start a new beehive. This Is how honeybees reproduce. If you wanted another hive you could have caught them. The reason they remained stationary was likely due to them not being able to find a good place to settle. (they send out scouts to look for good places to inhabit). Once your hive reach a certain number they might also try to swarm to spread their genetics. 

 

 

edit. it could very well be your own hive that swamed. Has the hive population reduced? 

Edited by DRpepper, September 26 2023 - 10:09 AM.

[CAantz]

My hive swarmed a while ago and I managed to catch the swam, so I had two hives. It’s kinda like an infinite and free bee glitch.

[DRpepper]

yeah except you loose all productivity in the first hive. Its better to do splits to be honest. 

[ConcordAntman]

I had checked my hive twice after the swarms appeared in my yard and hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. The last week of September through the first week of October we were celebrating our son’s 40th birthday and babysitting our grandchildren in Chicago. A few days before we left, I inspected my hive and was suspicious something was amiss. Though there was activity at the entrance, there wasn’t the same level of activity in the hive. It was diminished compared to just a week earlier. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

While we were gone we had a few days of rain but the weather improved and with much still in bloom in the area, I wasn’t worried. Unfortunately we returned to find the hive had collapsed with just a dozen or more dead bees on the landing board.

 

I’m disappointed with myself for not doing a good enough job shepherding my flock, so to speak. I’ve been fascinated by social insects since I was a kid and found having a hive remarkable. I’m undaunted and am already taking notes on what I’ll need to do better next season to be a successful beekeeper. I’m doing a post mortem with my beekeeping instructor in a day or two and will let you know what I find.

[Ernteameise]

Oh no.

I hope you find out what went wrong.

And that you do not give up and try again next year!

All the best!

[CAantz]

Same thing happened with two of my hives when I got started out with beekeeping where they seemed strong going into the fall months but some how ended collapsing very quickly.
I believe the main reason that mine collapsed were because of varroa mites which are very common and devastating in beehives. If you saw any small red dots on the backs of your bees prior to the collapse, they might have been the reason.

[DRpepper]

 

 

 

"While we were gone we had a few days of rain but the weather improved and with much still in bloom in the area, I wasn’t worried. Unfortunately we returned to find the hive had collapsed with just a dozen or more dead bees on the landing board."----- So you only found a few dozen dead bees? if that's the case they may have just left the hive. Honestly its pretty common to have hives collapse in the fall. I have had two collapse. 

 

 

[CAantz]

It is possible that the remaining workers carried away the dead ones until there were too many dead to manage and therefore the just left them on the landing board but idk. You might have already checked, but there might be a lot more dead on the ground ended and near the entrance of the hive.

Edited by CAantz, October 13 2023 - 2:00 PM.

[dspdrew]

Your ant moats could work if you did something similar to my mite isolation platforms. Just keep the spaces large enough to keep the ants from crossing and small enough to keep the bees from getting through. Also mineral oil is much better. It never goes rancid, and is a lot cheaper too.

 

[ConcordAntman]

I’d hoped this to be an ongoing conversation on a newbie beekeeper’s experience. I suppose failure is a fair indication of some newbie’s foray into this endeavor. I spent yesterday tearing down my hive, trying to glean clues as to the reason for my hive’s demise. 
 

 

 

 

 

There was no evidence of parasites and I have a friend examining bees and comb from the hive for microscopic evidence of disease. I’m still waiting to hear on that. The bulk of build out was under the top feeder due to my error placing the top feeder in too large a box. Interestingly, much of that comb was uninhabited any unfilled with pollen or honey. Only half of the 16 frames had some build out and a fair amount of that was also uninhabited. I come away from this surprised that in an area surrounded by 3 farms, 2 golf courses, and a greenhouse, there could be so little in terms of pollen and honey stored in the hive. I’m also surprised that there’s so little brood. I’m wondering if I had a poorly laying queen with too few workers to support her and the hive. 
 

I’m already thinking about next spring. When we get a sunny day up here, I’ll wash out the boxes and frames in a 2:1 water:ammonia solution. I'm considering going foundation-less in the spring so I’ve removed half of the foundations using the other 8 frames to serve as a guide for the bees to maintain bee space in the hive. I’ll post again if I find any news of pathogens from microscopic analysis, otherwise I’ll talk to you again next spring. Thanks!

 

 

 

[ANTdrew]

Farms and golf courses seem like some of the worst bee habitat to me. Could they have gotten exposed to neonicotinoid pesticides?

[ConcordAntman]

It’s possible but I don’t think so. One farm is across the street from us and I’ve met the beekeeper who keeps his bees there. He’s met with their pest management team and felt it’s safe enough that he’s got hives in his fields. The golf courses are more likely culprits but both are a bit farther away. Also, the beekeeper up the street from me lost one of her hives too. Until I hear from my friend on the microscopic analysis, I think a weak queen combined with newbie errors might’ve been enough to doom my hive

[100lols]

Major bummer!! Glad you aren’t giving up. I’m excited for the next try!! This try was an awesome ride

[futurebird]

Are you going to give this another shot in the spring? I've always wanted to keep bees but there is so much to learn, though there are a lot of keepers in NYC and they are pretty helpful.