The queen is dead, long live the queen

Last time we were out in the bee yard we had a very aggressive hive that needed to be re-queened.  This is not the time of year to re-queen, if you want to re-queen from your own bee yard. If you can find a queen to purchase you might have better luck.

Right now the colonies that have overwintered are building up their population, but drones are few and far between, so even if we try and let the hive re-queen its self the virgin queen may not get mated properly.

I was thinking we could split up the boxes and combine them with Dill and Wisteria, of course that means pinching the queen and how would our gentle hives fare against the aggressive hive. So, I called Alicia at Sunny Bee Honey Farm and she let me pick her brain.

The usual/easiest method of combining hives is to place a sheet of newspaper between the boxes of bees, the time is takes for the bees to chew through the paper allows the queenless bees to get used to the pharamones of the new queen. The aggressiveness of the Clover hive made me worry about my gentle queens in the weaker Dill and Wisteria hives, I didn't want the Clover bees to break through the paper to soon and kill my queens. Alicia suggested using a double screen board, and explained how it is used.  I called Charlie and he stopped by on his way home and picked up two from her.

After Charlie arrived home from work the next day we suited up and headed out to the bee yard.  I even borrowed my daughter's gloves. I felt like I had clown fingers wearing them, but I didn't want to get stung yet again.

The first thing we did was feed Dill and Wisteria a pollen and a winter patty each, remove the screened inner covers, place the double screen boards with the entrances facing the back, and replace the telescoping covers.

Next came the difficult part. After smoking the hive Charlie pulled the top box from Clover, replaced the cover and we started searching the frames for the queen.  The colony was calmer than it had been on the 9th, but it was still aggressive.  Charlie started on one side and I started on the other.  We found nectar, pollen and LOTS of eggs. By the second frame Charlie found the queen, actually he smelled her, then he found her.

No, really, a lemony smell, and there she was.  A couple of years ago at a bee club queen marking for the fair, Mr. Timmons (old time commercial bee keeper from the club) told us that if you had a strong queen you would be able to smell her. I think most of us only half believed him, but darned if Charlie didn't tell me he could smell her - then there she was on the frame he was holding.

Since he was holding the frame it was up to me to squish the queen.  It was the hardest thing to do.  As beekeepers it is drilled into our heads to be careful of the queen, don't hurt the queen, don't roll the queen, and here I was killing the queen.

After the deed was done we added one box on top of Dill and two boxes to Wisteria. Now we wait and see.

Well, that wasn't fun at all.

The weather cleared and we headed out to look at the remaining hives, Clover and the SG Hive, as we didn't have a chance to inspect them on Friday.

We suited up, lit the smoker and were good to go.

Charlie popped the cover on Clover.

First Hive Inspection of 2014

Weather: mostly sunny, ~55°F, light breeze

Goals: pull dead hives, perform postmortem, inspect live colonies and feed

from L to R: Clover, Thistle, Dill, Wisteria, SG Split, SG Hive

Start of a New Beekeeping Year

With this lovely sun the last few days I was able to go out and check on my hives and give them a feed. With the cold this winter and the rain the last few weeks, I had been dreading this. Of our six colonies we lost two, better than the previous year where we lost our only one.

My daughter lost her split, I am sad about this as that had been one of the gentlest colonies I had ever seen. We had planned on creating some nucs from it this year, to try and pass on the gentle genetics. Funny thing is that the split came from my daughter's cranky colony. When I say cranky, I mean chase you across the pasture and bounce off your veil. We will be requeening that hive soon, should have done it last fall, actually. They look to have gone through their stores faster than we thought they would, will have to be more vigilant next year.

The second colony we lost was one I thought was quite strong going into winter. I will do a post mortem soon to see if I can figure out what happened.

Of the four remaining, two look to be strong and the other two aren't quite as strong, but doing well.

I'm hoping the warm weather continues so I can go in and do a real inspection soon. I'm itching to really get my hands in the hives.

Another Day

 

Penny found a turkey egg in the brambles, she is an egg sucking dog.

Yes, that is the new nest box in the background,
and the eggs are in the bag of shavings for the nest box... sigh.

2 Day Hive Check

Day 1: We had just a couple of goals for this hive check, other than the general check; one was to transfer the Miller Queen split to an 8-frame hive, the other was to add brood boxes to Dill and Hannah's split.

Chicken Feeder

Finally finished the chicken feeder I started before the nest box. It is based on this design from Farm Folly: http://wp.me/pHdIL-PQ

I used 1x instead of 2x lumber in the construction, and it seems plenty strong enough, esp since I tend to over build everything. Used the Kreg Jig to attach the front angled panel, quite the handy tool.

The feeder holds a full 50lb bag of feed, very handy, and has a lid that can be locked at night so racoons and other critters can't raid it, esp since the barn is so open.