fall flow Archives - Beekeeping.isGood

The fall flow was a failure for the premiere hive

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

September 20

Drones on the bottom board. No doubt they are being corralled out of the hive.

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

No signs that any honey had been stored in the bottom box

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The middle box still had some honey, but no evidence they had replaced any of the honey they ate in August.

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

The box we had moved to the top last time still only contained a few combs and a small amount of nectar. So we moved it back to the bottom, thinking the bees will move the nectar up and we will be able to remove this box in the future.

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

Only one comb in this box had been used for brood. The average cell size for seventeen cells in this photo seems to be around 5.26.

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

This is the brood comb that was originally started in the box where every other frame contained nectar or honey.

September 29 - October 12

The bottom box was found empty and removed. The queen was spotted laying on the eastern edge of the top box. Looking at her gave me little doubt she is the same queen we saw in the spring and that no supercedure had taken place.

As the hive was too light for winter we began feeding. 4kg of sugar in a 2:1 syrup mix was given on each of the following days: Sept. 29, Oct. 3 and Oct. 5. On Oct. 5 there were still no signs of capped honey in the bottom box. By Oct. 10th they had only finished about half of the syrup provided during the last visit and I replaced it with another 2kg. By October 12 bees could still be seen drinking from the feeder but almost all of it was still there. The feeder was removed. The hive had gained a reasonable weight by this time, and the smell of ripening honey was present at the entrance. We added an entrance reducer.

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.

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

Still some brood in the nuc box.

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

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

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

2nd box

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

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

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.

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

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.

They rasied tons of bees but haven't been able to store much honey

shawn-cazaSeptember 28, 2013July 4, 2015Leave a comment

August 30

The 4th top box which formerly was all capped honey now has brood in it and just a few full combs of honey.

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

More brood in the 3rd box.

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

A number of queen cups, but nobody was home:

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The 2nd box was also being used for brood

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The bottom box was still not fully drawn

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It was being used for pollen

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The hive certainly had a whole lot of bees spilling out all over the place, a whole lot of brood and little room above brood for honey with the goldenrod flow started.

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

We moved the bottom box to the top and seeded a new box below in case such a strong population needed more to keep them busy.

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September 20

The goldenrods had mostly finished and the asters were making themselves apparent.

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

The entrance was extremly busy with fast moving bees, and I believe that is a drone pupa being removed:

The top box had a good bit of honey

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

but they actually expanded to have a bit more brood here too:

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

The 4th box

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still had a fairly large amount of capped brood:

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

The 3rd box was also devoted to brood

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

containing larvae. We also noted some DWV here too:

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

And what might be k-wing:

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The 2nd box was also brood:

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

The bottom box had very little new comb and it was all empty. We removed this box from the hive.

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

It would appear the goldenrod flow was good enough to stimulate the bees to make more brood but not good enough for them to store much. In retrospect some of our recent managment choices look rather poor. Needless to say so many bees are likely going to need feed to get them through the winter.