I had time to inspect our hives today for the first time in about three or four weeks. It’s the first time in June we’ve had some half decent weather on the weekend. Anyway…
There is no chance of either of our colonies swarming, or building into a honey super any time soon. Not by a long shot. I inspected our hives today and both are weak. The combination of about 40 days of drizzle and cold and thousands of drones from the foundationless frames eating up all the hives’ resources has weakened the colonies.
One hive is overloaded with drones and drone comb, a little bit of worker brood, some pollen and virtually zero honey stores.
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The other hive has more worker brood and more honey, but we found several frames with waxed foundation that have barely been touched.
These bees are starving.
Read on . . . »
Well, we inspected Hive #1 today because we were concerned about swarming. We found a few queen cells cups, but also plenty of empty cells for the queen to keep laying. I don’t think the colony is at risk of swarming. It does, however, seem to be overrun by drones. This frame containing both capped worker brood and drone brood was one of the better looking frames — because it wasn’t filled entirely with drones:
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CLICK THIS LINK FOR A CLOSER LOOK ON A SEPARATE PAGE.
Read on . . . »
Just because it’s so pretty, I thought I’d post a close-up shot of the drone comb I pulled last week.
The comb is on display in our house now, up against one of our kitchen windows where the light can shine through it.
Here’s a quick video of the drone comb I pulled from Hive #2 yesterday with some commentary about the architecture of the comb. I point out the drone eggs, too, which should show up well in full screen HD mode.
SELECT 720p FOR HIGH DEFINITION AND OPTIMAL FULL SCREEN VIDEO PLAYBACK.
I call this post “Architecture of Honey Comb” even though it’s drone comb because, as far as I know, there’s no difference between the two. Both drone comb and honey comb have large cells, and drone comb is supposedly backfilled with honey once the drones emerge, anyway, so they’re virtually the same.
I decided to pull this natural drone comb today because the frame doesn’t have any support wire, which would have made the comb a prime candidate for snapping off the frame someday.
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Jenny noticed a feature of the comb that had us in awe of the bees again. But I’ll tell you about it later.
P.S. (later): See Architecture of Honey Comb to view an illustrative video.
It was warm enough in our backyard to inspect Hive #2 today, the first inspection for that hive this year. I had to do it alone again, so it looks a lot like the last inspection (maybe not a whole lot to see here). I pulled the frames from the brood boxes and moved them into new boxes, and I moved the hive about six inches to the left (enough to slightly disorient many of the foragers, which I’ll show in the next post). I also found some mould on the last frame in the bottom box thinking it was wax moth, but it was probably just mould from water seeping into the hive over the winter. The bees were not at all defensive. They were crawling all over me, but I didn’t see any trying to sting me. I misted the bees with sugar water at one point only to make sure they stayed put, though I think I would have been fine without it.
SELECT 720p FOR HIGH DEFINITION AND OPTIMAL FULL SCREEN VIDEO PLAYBACK.
Read on . . . »
THE FOLLOWING HAS BEEN UPDATED SINCE ORIGINALLY POSTED.
I did a full inspection of Hive #1 today, the first inspection of the year. I also moved the hive to a new location a couple feet away, further from a small walkway that cut too much into the bees’ flightpath.
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That’s the hive on the left and the new location on the right. I didn’t use a smoker or a sugar spray bottle. The bees were disoriented but calm. It’s possible I could have done without my veil or gloves. But I’m not that lovey-dovey with the bees just yet. I’ll explain everything after the video.
Read on . . . »
This is a response to a comment about foundationless and natural beekeeping left by Sam a few days ago.
The natural habitat for honey bees is a tropical climate inside a hollow log, so there’s only so much we can do to emulate those conditions. Still, if we’re going to keep bees, the foundationless methods seem to interfere the least with their natural behaviour. (Nov. 20/10 update: See the Backwards is The New Forwards video for more info on the benefits of foundationless frames.) It’s a backwards approach compared to conventional beekeeping, but it seems better for the bees and I like it. (Basically, it’s the kind of beekeeping Michael Bush does.)
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| A 2-week-old Newfoundland foundationless honeycomb (August 28, 2010). |
At this point in the game, though, I’m not sure how well backwards beekeeping will play out in Newfoundland’s cold, wet, east coast climate.
Read on . . . »
THE FOLLOWING WAS LAST UPDATED ON JAN. 24, 2011.
I’m not so worried about all the dead drone larvae pupae I found outside one of our hives for the past two days. It was spooky and gross and unnerving, but it’s much less alarming now that I know what’s most likely going on.
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We introduced some foundationless frames to our hives when we added the second brood box. The results were fantastic. Fully-drawn comb full of honey. Beautiful. What we didn’t know is that bees that haven’t drawn natural comb before, will start off building drone comb, as shown in the above photo taken earlier today during a full hive inspection. We found two foundationless frames with large clusters of drone cells, and on at least one frame, most of the drone cells appeared to be recently emptied.
Read on . . . »
Drawn and partially-drawn comb look much prettier on foundationless frames. Here’s what some partially-drawn comb looks like on a frame with black plastic foundation:
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Here’s a half-drawn comb on a foundationless frame:
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Now don’t tell me that ain’t way prettier.
UPDATE (Nov. 20/10): See the Backwards is The New Forwards video for more info on the benefits of foundationless frames.
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