THE FOLLOWING HAS BEEN UPDATED SINCE IT WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED. SCROLL TO THE END FOR TIPS ON HOW TO DEAL WITH WASPS.
My wonderful Boardman feeders are attracting wasps to the hive, and man are they nasty. Wasps and honey bees do not get along. I’ve already seen some wasps attack and kill a few honey bees. It’s pretty gruesome.
A few wasps hanging around aren’t usually a problem, but I read it can become a problem if the wasps nest is close to the hive. The bees become constantly on the defence. If some wasps actually get into a hive, well, it’s not good — and I just noticed a wasps nest in the apple tree close to my shed, about 50 feet away from the hives.
It’s times like this I wish there was a Newfoundland beekeepers association. I’ve done plenty of research, but research and real world practice are not the same. Confidence comes from practice, not from research. I wish there was a local beekeeper I could meet with close by.
Read on . . . »
THE FOLLOWING HAS BEEN UPDATED SINCE ORIGINALLY POSTED.
Jenny and I decided to do a thorough inspection of our honey bee hives today. It was supposed to rain all day, but the sun came out in full force in the early afternoon, so we took advantage of the sunshine and put on our bee suits.
Here I am inspecting a frame full of what I think is brood. I need to find an experienced beekeeper to help us identify exactly what we’re looking at. I know we saw plenty of honey and plenty of uncapped brood. At one point we could see the little white larva at the bottom of the cells filling one full side of a frame. It was impressive. We couldn’t find the queen in either hive, but both seem to be laying plenty of eggs.
We’ve decided we don’t like smoking the bees. The Seldom Fools beekeepers spray their bees, and now so do we. Whenever the bees were agitated (we could hear the difference in their buzzing immediately), we just misted them with a little sugar water and five seconds later they were back to normal. We probably could have used plain water mist, but a little sugar never hurt no one. The last time we used the smoker on the bees, they were buzzing like mad and flying around the hives in large numbers for at least an hour afterwards. It took them awhile to recover. Today, using the water mist on them, they were totally cool. You’d never know we’d completely dismantled their houses and put them back together again. I can see maybe using the smoker next year when we harvest some of the honey and have to brush the bees off the frames, but I’m convinced for now that misting the bees with a little water is the way to go.
Read on . . . »
THE FOLLOWING WAS LAST UPDATED ON APRIL 19, 2012.
I’ve been using a Boardman feeder so our bees will create brood comb faster and build up the colony to a healthy size, one strong enough to make it through the winter. This is a Boardman feeder:
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THE FOLLOWING WAS LAST UPDATED ON DEC. 23, 2010.
We started up our first two honey bee hives a little over a week ago, both from nuc boxes. Hive #1 had a Boardman feeder installed. When we checked the hives a week a later (just looking down at the frames, not pulling them out), it was clear the hive with the feeder had built the most comb in that week. So we decided to move the feeder to Hive #2. Some bees from Hive #1 went along for the ride, but we assumed they would fly back to their own hive. We also installed an improvised feeder for Hive #2 because we didn’t want to deprive them of a food source they’d been used to (a regular Boardman feeder has been ordered and is on the way).
We’ve noticed more bees hovering around the entrance of the hives from time to time since we switched up the feeders. They weren’t hovering like this before. I did some quick research, and apparently feeding the bees can set off a robbing spree. Bees from another hive will force their way in and steal honey. The bees being stolen from can eventually starve to death from a lack of honey. But it’s also possible the hovering bees are just young bees orientating themselves to the hive. I think that’s more likely the case since the nuc boxes came with at least one full frame of brood (eggs), and many of those eggs may have begun to hatch now. I hope that’s what it is. Here’s a low-rez video of what it looks like (I have a high-rez camera coming soon):
Read on . . . »
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