First Inspection

We're leaving tomorrow for vacation, and for the last week, it's been on and off again rain.

I don't really like to go into the hive when it's raining, since the bees get grumpy about getting exposed to bad weather.  So I just held off for four days. I'd been hoping to do the inspection on Wednesday, but it wasn't good and sunny until Sunday morning.

So I skipped church, and went into the hive in mid-morning, when the sun was full on, and a lot of the field workers were out. I prepped with a sugar water spray bottle, my suit, and head gear, and just went right in.

They were all over the bottom box. Building all the way out into the outer frames. It was good to see.  I carefully lifted a center frame, and there wasn't that much weight to it. Not a lot of honey, but when I got it out and looked, more than half of both sides of it were capped brood. So the queen was busy and the workers were all over it, feeding the young. I could see larvae in the backs of the dark cells, pretty easily, and they looked like they were doing fine. The queen wasn't on that frame, so I put it in a box in the shade, and then started going through the other frames.

There was a ton of brood, not a lot of honey, but then they were probably using it quickly to get the newly hatched to grow and develop.  The pollen patties I had put into the box were getting used really quickly. That is all to the good, as the sooner there are more workers getting born, the sooner they will be able to get more nectar and get the hive to grow.

The interesting thing for me was that they'd built all the way to the outside frames already... and she was laying eggs all the way out to the outside frames. The workers were storing nectar and pollen throughout, and getting all the way to the outside frames.  So it was time to put on a second deep, already.  It makes sure that they feel like they have plenty of room, and the weather lately has been wet enough that the local flowers and grasses are going crazy.

So I put the box back together, went with John into the garage and the two of us put together another eight frames with foundation and put them into one of the boxes.  Then I opened things back up, rescued a worker that had gotten squished into the pollen patties, and she was fine. That was good.  I then put the second deep box on top of the first, and then added top back on and the telescoping lid.  The weather for the next ten days is going to be a mix of rain and sun. Not too hot and not too cold, so I left the medium opening in, and didn't worry too much about venting the top, yet. Time enough for that then the temps get up into the 90's.

One of the really encouraging things was finding that in the bottom box that the bees hadn't built any crazy wax structures.  I'd actually spaced the frames well enough that they hadn't found it necessary to bridge any gaps.  So after I placed the top box on the bottom one, I took my gloves off in order to re-gap them so that they were as even as I really wanted them.

I can only hope that they keep that up.

After they fill the second deep, I'll be able to add a queen excluder and the supers; but I'll give them the time and the space to do all the building that they want. It's been nearly four weeks since I put them in, and six weeks is when the first wave of the new bees should be coming out of the box. That will be soon after we're back from our trip, and I'm half hoping that I can move them away from the part of the yard with the play structure.

John had originally figured that we'd put the hive here because our roof had to get redone, and the solar panels that were living just above the old location for my hive.  So to keep the bees out of the workers' way, we'd put it where it is.  Moving them is going to be interesting as there's a saying that you can move a hive two feet or ten miles, because the bees orient around the location of their hive, and if it's moved just two feet, they can easily find it again, but if it's more than that, these tiny creature of utmost habit seem to have a really hard time.  They just go out and try to come back to where the hive used to be.

There are tricks to it.  So we'll be trying them when we get back and it's warm enough for the workers to survive even if they don't find the hive immediately.  I am going to have to get them to reorient when they go out of the hive, and do a little management of the ones that go back to the old site anyway for a day or two, I think.

In the meantime, though, they'll get to just stay in peace while we go off on our trip.

Queen Release

It paid off.

Putting the mini-marshmallow in instead of having to dig the cork out later. I did like I did last time, and waited three days to make sure they'd all settled in before I went into the hive in order to figure out if the Queen had made it out and if there were things I had to do in order to get the missing frame back in.

There were things I had to do, the girls were really busy.

The Girls are Back in Town

Murdoch's called last week to say that the bees would be in town on May 1st, and that I'd have 24 hours to pick them up. Then yesterday, Sunday, they called to say that people could pick them up Sunday afternoon/evening as well as Monday; but since I wasn't actually expecting them, I didn't get the message until today. And they said that we could pick them up until 5pm today.

So we went there a little before 2pm, as I had 911 all morning. It was kind of a rough set of incidents, including one with a suicidal father whom the dispatchers called directly to get him out of the house without weapons... that worked out; but it was odd to listen through.

But it was good to be with John and getting the girls.

They came in the standard wire box. When we went into the store to pick them up, the customer care guy told us that we had to go around back, as they didn't want people bringing their bees through the store itself. I kind of blinked at that, and I guess I understood, but at a gut level I was just laughing. Homeless bees are harmless, but people react badly to stinging insects, I guess.

So we went round back, and they had a few dozen of the wired cages in the back, with the lovely buzzing of warm bees. The weather had been freezing over the weekend, with snow and ice and all that, so yesterday they'd been a lot more quiescent, and the lady back there was saying that they were a lot more active with the warm weather. I got to pick my box, and I tried for the one where they were clumped up most closely to the queen. They'd definitely accepted her and were hanging near her to keep her warm, and there were fewer dead bodies at the bottom.

So I picked them up, took them to the back of our car, and we put them in a crate that would hold any droppings that happened, and we went and got Jet from school. *laughs*

As always, there were always a few bees hanging out on the outside of the cage, but they stayed there while we were in transet, as they had the last time I'd gotten them, so there was no worry about that. Jet got in at school and was cheerful enough about sitting in the back seat. They were back in the hatchback of the car, and there were no worries. He asked if he could help, but there really wasn't much for him to do.

John mostly kept me focussed on the checklist, what it was I had to do, and I knew the steps were pretty straightforward, i.e. take out the can, get the queen out, put a marshmallow in for the plug, and then get her into the hive. Pour all the workers on top, and then try and get a feeder onto it so that they would have something to eat. I also put the can into the hive, so that they would have that as a source of food as well. The hive was full of old comb, so I figured they'd have plenty to walk around on, there would be ready-made insulation, and old comb is attractive to bees.

It was easier the second time. A lot easier. I knew what to expect, and knew how docile the girls really would be. So when the can came out and they zoomed out of the box, it was easy for me to ignore the sounds and the little insect brushing and bouncing against my hands and all my gear. The can came out easily with the hive tool, and only a few of them clung to it, and they moved readily when I set the can down on the tops of the frames in the box.

I think they could smell the comb, so they dropped down into the rows quickly.

For some reason, the whole things was a lot more tightly secured than it had been the previous box I'd had. And the band holding the queen's cage into the box was more deeply inset into the wood. I had to really pry to get the tab to come up, but it was double folded and I had no problems holding onto it in order to work it free from the slot it had been put into. Having all the bees crawling all over my hands was really kind of cool. *laughs*

I know most people wouldn't say that, but I really loved it; and loved knowing that I wasn't going to react badly to it. I was very carefully suppressing any urge to swat or wave at the girls; and it was kind of fun knowing that I didn't have to in a way. I trusted them, and they rewarded the trust by not ever stinging me or making the move that was a prelude to a sting.

The tab was actually of such sharp metal that it cut into the wood, so I had to work it free at different angles.

When she came out, she came out with a lot of attendants. So many that I had to give the whole cluster a little shake to get them to drop into the hive. I always worry about damaging the queen when I do that, so I was really careful about it. And when I could finally get a good grasp on the cage and turn it around to actually look at her, she looked just fine.

She's really active, and it looked like she was really doing well in there.

Last time I'd just hung her in the hive and decided to worry about removing the plug later, and it had been kind of a pain to get it out the second time when the bees had already decided it was their home. So this time, instead, I dug the cork out to begin with, and I stuffed a mini marshmallow into the hole, like the instructions said to do. It kind of peels off the outsides and squishes into the hole really well and really stickly. *laughs*

The idea is to just keep the queen in the hive until everyone had decided that this is going to be their home. She usually sticks with the workers once they've established the hive, and they stick with her while she's stuck in the cage. And the idea is that she and her workers will eat at the candy plug until they can free her and clean her off. This way they release her eventually.

The other thing I did differently than last time was that this time I actually shook all the girls out onto thier home, rather than waiting patiently for them to figure it out by just sticking the wire box into the hive top. I thought about it, but decided not to, but I also did the second deep so that they could still keep the can of sugar syrup from the traveling case in the hive with them for the first couple of nights.

I may well remove that and the second deep if it gets too cold at night. They also have a feeder on top, with about a quart of simple syrup up there. I'll have to check it soon and probably refill it as soon as they're done with it. Though the spring here has been wet recently, so there should be plenty of bloom for them to forage off of. Still, it was snow, which can freeze off a lot of bloom. Still, the dandelions are popping everywhere, and there should be more stuff sooner rather than later.

They were everywhere, and there were one or two actually chasing me already. I'm not sure what that bodes? But they had the angry sound, which I was more used to in the deeper end of summer.

We actually have the box in a different part of the yard than where they'll end up staying; but we have people coming on Monday to put the solar panels back up on the roof. So we had to put the hive in a place that would be out of the way and keep the workers out of the flight path.

I loved being able to just stand in the cloud of bees, though, and they were doing fine with where they'd ended up. I made sure that the queen cage was facing out the right way, and the spacing looked right for what they had in there. They also all seemed to find good footing, and were happy to get into and onto all the comb that they could find and clean it all out. There had been some wax month damage on the waxed frames I'd kept from the end of the hive three years ago. There can't be mites and I'd frozen them, but then put them back out into the garage, and the wax months had found them again.

I put the feeder on top, then the top board, and finally the telescoping tin lid to keep everything else off. *laughs*

This time I had the snow brush to brush all the girls into the box before I placed anything anywhere. That was really good to have this time. *laughs* The things I learned from the mistakes of the previous time. I often think that if one is just lucky the first time, you don't get to learn what you actually did *right* the same way you get to learn what you did wrong from the mistakes of the previous time.

That seems to always be true, no matter the endeavour.

By the time I was done, they were already doing orienting flights from the front entrance. I have the restrictor on, at mid length, as the temps at night are still in the high 30's. Not super warm, but also not terribly cold. They should be able to defend this size entrance.

It was amazing how satisfying it was to just see happy, healthy bees orienting on the hive entrance.

I went and adjusted a few things, putting a deep box on the top instead of the medium one, and having to leave a crack between it and the feeder to begin with because so many of the girls were using the crack as an entrance at the start. I also put the shipping cage into the shade behind the hive.

When the sun started to go down behind some clouds, all the bees who were in the cage got into the hive, and fewer and fewer were wandering outside, and I finally just went over and closed the gap, with bare hands and no protective gear. With the gap closed, too, they were keeping more heat in the hive, which is important these first few nights.

I'm really grateful that ours didn't come two weeks ago, the way the Boulder Beekeepers' bees came. With the snow and temperatures in the 20's, I would have had a hard time worrying about them. As it is, now, while it's near freezing at night, I know they should be all right.