the moon hive Archives - Beekeeping.isGood

A strong end to the season for the moon hive.

shawn-cazaOctober 25, 2013July 4, 2015Leave a comment

A video overview of the hive entrance over the course of the fall:

September 1

Goldenrod and knotweed flowing.

They were making honey in the warré boxes but we saw they had returned to the nuc box for brood rearing. The nuc was still fairly heavy though.

One comb in the bottom box was not 100% drawn. We moved this comb and one other honey / nectar frame to a new box under the nuc. It was a tough call on wether to expand or not.

September 8

The knotweed is on its way out.

Photo by: Shawn Caza / CC: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

They had 5 good sized combs in the new box. 2 that had been just started that we moved in between the other combs.

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Still some brood in the nuc box.

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September 18

We flipped the entrance to the larger opening (In anticipation for winter, so there's less chance wintering bees dying winter bees will block the entrance.)

Bottom box - Some amount of capped brood, loads of pollen

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2nd box

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Only looked at two frames. Saw honey on the top edges and eggs. We saw the queen here.

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We watched here for a while as she appeared to have a deformity on one side of her upper abdomen.

It seems we spooked her as she flew away. We were very happy to see her return a minute latter to the hive.

3rd box - still small comb on the edge.

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Tops of the centre combs had honey.

Photo by: Shawn Caza / CC: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

Some brood on 6 frames, mostly capped. Two had eggs.

Compared to the sun hive, it seems much less populous, maybe 1/3 of the bees. The top two boxes feel heavy. Maybe heavier than the sun hive.

A good variety of flowers blooming in nearby gardens:

Photo by: Shawn Caza / CC: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

October 12

This hive is very heavy. More honey than any of the others. With cool weather on the way we reduced the entrance very tight.

October 23

The high was around 6 and things were extremly quiet at the entrance. I only occasionaly saw a guard bee. A few dead / dying bees around the entrance. One was removed from the hive while I watched.

Photo by: Shawn Caza / CC: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

Very occasionaly a wasp waltzed into the hive and would exit about a minute later.

Storing some honey, slowly expanding but some signs of mites

shawn-cazaAugust 27, 2013July 4, 2015Leave a comment

August 4

Photo by: Shawn Caza / CC: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

top nuc box - Only very small patches of brood remaining and lots of honey.

middle warré box - eggs as well as both capped and young brood.

bottom box - Six drawn combs. Not really being used for brood, but there were loads of bees.

In the bottom box I pushed four established combs to the edges and moved two brood combs down. One with eggs and young larvae. I left an undrawn comb in the centre of the middle box.

I was very distressed to find a couple of bees in the grass that didn't appear to be doing very well. It looked like k-wing, bloated abdomens and scruffy / greasy hair:

Photo by: Shawn Caza / CC: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

This one appeared to have a wound. Possibly from mites?

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And this one a deformed abdomen:

Photo by: Shawn Caza / CC: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

and ants were attacking this immobile bee:

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This left me suspecting problematic levels of varroa or tracheal mites or both.

There was a good amount of activity from healthy bees at the entrance:

Bees were spotted nearby foraging on astilbe:

Photo by: Shawn Caza / CC: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

August 6th

I returned with the intention of collecting bees with k-wing to dissect and look for tracheal mites. I did not find any. Just one bee with a deformed thorax:

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A few days later

The only bee I was able to spot in the grass flew away.

August 19th

All combs significantly filled out, but not 100%.

Only small amounts of brood in the bottom box, but lots of pollen.

Photo by: Shawn Caza / CC: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

Pollen frame 3rd from the west edge separating brood combs.

The middle box had a good amount of mostly capped brood:

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They were starting to make some honey here.

We cut out a section of drone comb from the above frame, but did not find a high proportion of mites. Neither did we see any bees in the grass and the bottom board had been kept clean.

We added another skid below the hive to raise them up a little higher in case of winter snow drifts or flooding. We turned the top skid so there were no gaps for bees to fall through in front of the entrance. We also removed the eke that had been used to give the hive feed when we first set them up.

No young brood

shawn-cazaJuly 27, 2013July 4, 2015Leave a comment

July 4

The nuc had capped honey on the very top of the frames.

Photo by: Shawn Caza / CC: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

Still loads of capped brood up there, but appeared to be filling empty spaces with nectar:

Photo by: Shawn Caza / CC: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

The warré box had seven combs going:

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We nadired a new box, seeded with one frame from the box above.

July 14

Very active with bees. Entrance reducer was removed completly. It was left below as an alighting board. The bottom shadow of the reversible bottom board seemed to cause some confusion for the bees returning to the hive and trying to determine how to enter the hive.

The migratory roof on the nuc was very hot in mid-day sun. I added some branches on the top of the hive to provide a little shade.

Photo by: Shawn Caza / CC: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

Still actively working the mint, lots on dutch and sweet white clover, some on milkweed, trumpet flowers and hydrandea getting some attention. The lindens are more or less done but I finally witnessed a bee on one of the remaining flowers.

July 20

Four combs had been started in the new box.

Photo by: Shawn Caza / CC: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

- some nectar, pollen and empty space.

- The seed comb was mostly hatched out.

- Only spotted two eggs on one frame.

In the middle box, we saw some capped brood hatching out, nectar and small patches of eggs.

The top box still had lots of brood.

Could the lack of young brood be due to the heat wave? Or did we try to make them expand into a new box too soon?

Bees seemed to have given up on the sweet clover and the dutch clover had been mowed. The mint was still getting a few visitors. Bergamont was attracting the odd honey bee:

Photo by: Shawn Caza / CC: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

Butterfly bush was getting some attention:

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The crowd favorite seemed to be the russian sage:

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Lots of bees, deformed wings and comb building

shawn-cazaJuly 3, 2013July 4, 2015Leave a comment

June 29th

I didn't pull any frames out. Just checked that the combs were coming along and straight.

Photo by: Shawn Caza / CC: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

Six frames had some degree of comb started.

Photo by: Shawn Caza / CC: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

The population had increased a fair bit, and things were starting to get jammed at the entrance. I moved the entrance reducer a little bit out of the way.

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I also cleared away some of the tall vegitation as it wasn't helping entry.

July 2nd

Still a traffic jam, so I opened up the entrance a bit more.

The nuc had some drone cells when we got it. We elected not to cut them out of this hive. I could see a fair number of them at the entrance. There was also one drone, most likely suffering from deformed wing virus, climbing the grass and flapping its wings trying desperately to fly.

Photo by: Shawn Caza / CC: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

Not too much pollen at the entrance. Still the bright orange, but also a bright yellow now. I did see a bee close by on clover. Still lots of bees on the mint, and one on what I suspect could be elderberry. I'm guessing the bright yellow pollen is from the lindens. There's a good amount around the hives. I keep looking up at them, but still haven't managed to witness any foraging there.

Getting the moon hive started

shawn-cazaJune 26, 2013July 4, 2015Leave a comment

June 12th

We started this hive with a nuc-to-warré converter box, very similar to what we did with the sun hive. As the four-frame nuc was a little low on capped brood the breeder gave us a bonus frame filled on both sides with capped brood. The other four frames contained good amounts of pollen and there was some amount of eggs on each frame. The population seemed good, but not as strong as the sun hive. We gave this hive 500 ml of 1:1 sugar water.

June 19th

Most cells seemed to be in use for brood or food. A good number of eggs.

Photo by: Shawn Caza / CC: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License