My Sadness As A Beekeeper/Drone Laying Queens

I noticed something wasn't quite right with my two Nucleus (Nuc) hives that I had started a while back, so I went in for a check. At first glance I could see that there was WAY too many drones. I found the queen in each hive and she looked fine and I saw eggs, but what I found next was very disturbing. All of the brood was drone brood. Male honeybees.......this is NOT good in a hive. I had queens that had not been mated. Their eggs were not fertile and they could only produce male offspring. I had to make a very difficult decision. The queen had to be replaced :( I love my queens and I love seeing the new little hatchlings scurrying around on the comb looking in the cells to lay eggs. They are so sweet.Can you see that there are more drones than workers? The drones(males) are much larger and have bigger eyes than the workers (females)
In this picture below you can see the drone cells, there isn't any worker cells at all. Drone cells are bullet shaped and protrude up higher from the comb. Worker cells are even with the comb. If not caught the hive will perish, the males will eat them out of house and home, so to speak. Drones do not forage and they bring nothing to the hive to eat. They are just there to mate with queen bees. This was my dilemma, I had thought that if the hive had drones that a queen would mate. Please don't make that thoughtful mistake, a queen has to be in flight in order to mate.
This brings me to the reason "why" I had two drone laying queens. Those that follow this blog, will remember that I had a queen that had her right wings chewed from her sister that hatched before her. I called her my "Wingless" Queen, I thought I would be able to keep her and she would have her very own hive, that was not a good thing. Her fate had been sealed when she lost her wings before hatching.
The only reason I can think of that the second hive had a drone queen was because during her hatch we had some bad weather at that time, a lot of wind and rain and she wasn't able to fly during the night to mate. Or, if she did mate there wasn't enough drones in the mix. A queen needs to mate with at least 20 drones in order to have enough sperm to be fertile. This, I have read, is enough to last, she won't mate again.

I had to remove the queens, I pulled frames of fresh eggs from one of my favorite hives and placed them in each Nuc. They pulled out queen cells and now have new baby queens.....I do hope they mated. I'm thankful that the warmth has stayed here on us, even though the nights are cooling off, hopefully the queens have made their nuptial flight and will be able to produce big strong hives this coming spring.......only time will tell.

Until next time.......

BEE ALERT

BEE INFORMED

Julie

A Sweet Excuse!

I have a sweet excuse not to cut grass today....well, even this week ;)

It's funny how before we got bees to live in our yard, I never noticed the many things that bloom. Would this mean that I took things for granted? I have always loved the outdoors and nature and thought I had always noticed it before, but it's all different now. It's not just with me but my husband notices things too, and he has never been a "nut for nature" like me. I've noticed him when we're out riding or walking now, how he points out things that are blooming, I love it ;)










You can click on the pictures to enlarge.

I've heard of phrases like "One man's trash is another man's treasure" but one of my favorites is "One man's weed becomes another man's flower" and in this case, One man's weed becomes a pollinators' food.

I knew that grass goes to seed but I didn't think that in order for it to seed it has to flower....it has to bloom. (Duh);) That is until I found our bees on it. I noticed this last fall, but as far as I remember I didn't post on it ;)

You can see that not only the honeybees are enjoying the grass nectar and pollen but so are the bumble bees.

The flowers are so minuscule you wouldn't think they harvest much but their little pollen baskets were getting full.

When you're out and about, take time to notice the "little things" around you.....GOD has put so much joy around us, it's up to us took stop and take a peek at "Nature".

It's up to us to teach our children, we have so much confusion and sadness in our lives daily, take time out....MAKE time to sit and watch the wonders that are all around you......you'll bee glad you did;)

Until next time.....

BEE OBSERVANT ;0)

Julie

Queen Successes and Accomplished Goals!

Back in April of this year one of our large hives decided to swarm days before they were "technically" supposed to. If I've learned but one thing being a beekeeper, it would have to be, never, ever assume anything, especially about honeybees! They are on their schedule not ours and I don't care what the books say....our girls have NOT read any of them!LOL I have seen them pull and cap a queen cell within three days! I have pictures of one below. No....I did not over look it, they needed a queen and they were going to have a queen! Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.

This first picture is the swarm hive we caught back in April. It is ready to split, these girls are remarkable! Even with them splitting themselves in April, we have harvested honey from them!
Unfortunately this little hive below, which was the remains of the swarm, struggled. They tried to raise their own queens but kept losing them. They were robbed several times, so I moved them into a nuc box and my husband helped me relocate them. So far they have done very well.
In my post "Expectations and Surprises" (July 21,2010) I talked about a different hive that has three queens. Well, I was excited to know that I had "stand by" queens. I went into the hive and not really wanting to "choose" which queen of the two daughters I wanted to place in the small, queenless hive we just moved.....I decided that, other than the Queen Mother, the first Queen Daughter, that I came to first, would be the queen of the nuc hive. (I hope that made sense to you).....I found the Mother Queen first, but I didn't want to take her from the hive. Even though I love all of our Queen Bees...I have to say I was a little delighted that this one was was the first one I found.....the "Wingless" Queen!! Well, actually she has one side of her wings, she's a lefty, her right side was chewed off before she hatched, but she made it! And I've been rooting for her ever since! She's a strong queen, she's already proven that by beating the odds of survival.
Here she is....this is what she was doing when I found her...she was on the frame next to the Mother Queen....the next two pictures below you can see her with her abdomen down inside a cell, she was busy laying eggs. Can you pick her out?....She's the one towards the right side of the picture with "Nurse bees" all around her.




I have never caught a queen to put into a different hive before......we've just always let them raise their own queen, but hey! WE have a hive with three and the "Little hive" needed a queen fast.

We had an old queen box, that we got a couple of years ago when (the first and last time) we bought a queen. My husband came up with the bright idea of using a funnel of some sort to get the queen and a few nurse bees into the tiny hole in the candy queen box. It worked really good! I was also thankful that it was the "wingless" queen I was working with, because she would have flown away during this process....it was NOT as easy as it seemed!


She's in!

The anticipation was driving me crazy! I did wait for two days then I just had to see if they accepted her.......they did!!!! Can you see her? Her abdomen is larger and she's up at the top
Here she is again, you can see her left wing.......I'm so happy she's doing so well...even our Griff is happy!!
Now..see this picture below?? See that lump??? It's a queen cell, now when we moved the little nuc to their new location, I took two frames of eggs and c-cells from the hive I got the queen from.....I brushed all of the bees off and there was NO queen cell anywhere on those frames! This is three days later when I checked on the "wingless" queen. Three days! The books say 14-16 days! This just goes to show you determination.....So, that's okay, we have two hives that need to be split and we can use this queen to put in one of them! I love how this works ;)

Waiting on a meal......(thank you Ms. Nature Nut!)
On guard!

This is a very small split that I started for a friend. He makes us boxes and such and we trade him bees.....I placed a few frames of eggs, queen cells and nurse bees in a nuc, I made a "spacer" to block off the rest of the box so they wouldn't have to much to defend.....I new their queen had hatched and wanted to check them out. I also wanted to check my courage out....a goal I've been wanting to make for myself...going into the bees without any "protection". No veil, no gloves, no bee suit.....I did it!!!!!

I did it!! I was nervous, and I'm not sure I could have done it, if it hadn't have been a small hive, but I accomplished a goal that I wasn't so sure I would ever do! I now have a little more confidence to do it again, BUT I do know I would NOT ever go into our large hives with this confidence and without protection! LOL....Well.........;)

Until next time....

BEE....GOAL ORIENTED!

Julie

The Sweet Taste of Honeybees

This hive is the remnants of a swarm. The old queen left with the majority of the workers this spring and it's been struggling ever since.

When a hive swarms they take most of the honey stores with them. They gorge themselves to the point that their stomachs are so full it's almost impossible for them to sting. That's why it's so easy to catch a swarm, that's why and when they are at their calmest.......well, unless you have girls like ours ;) NOT saying they don't get testy but they are pretty sweet girls.....

I know that I've mentioned this before but I want to say it again. Becoming a beekeeper was not my idea....my husband had been wanting to have bees for quite sometime, when out of the blue a swarm appeared in my mothers grape arbor. Now, how strange is that? We caught them but had NO clue what so ever about honeybees! There wasn't information even on the web as far as we could find. I do have a cousin however, that had had bees so I called her......she was a wonderful help but when you live so far from each other things get distorted over the phone...especially with an imagination like mine! LOL I mean a bee box was like a huge chicken coop to me! LOL I had never seen a bee hive or box!When you don't "know" something and you're interested....it's best to study up on the subject before diving in ;) But to our defense we didn't have time....we had a swarm....ready for capture! That day was such a hoot! Another story for another time ;) Not only that sighting but I was at work and someone said there was bees hanging from a new building down the road and no one could find a beekeeper to get them. That started me on an investigation....I needed to find a beekeeper. This was about four years ago. We found a beekeeper and after some time passed and getting things ready, studying up on them,buying suits and equipment, etc., we decided to buy a hive of bees from him. We were hooked! I remember the first time I went into the hive with my husband......I was totally mesmerized! The awesomeness of how calm they were......they carried on with their business like we weren't even there! My husband has gotten used to me being slow and looking over every detail when I go into them and I have gotten quicker but still I work slow. Well, getting back to the story......

Ever since these girls split they have been getting robbed of their honey and they keep losing their queen. Just last week they had a new queen, but something didn't seem right with them over the last couple of days so I went into them yesterday and the new queen was gone....all of their honey was gone, they did have pollen but I could see where they had been robbed again. So I took them apart and put them into a nuc and me and my husband moved them (hopefully) to a more secure spot last night when it got dark.

Once I placed them in the nuc box, I kept going back out there to check on them to see if they were going to except the smaller home...they were but some were still hanging out on the old home box ;) ...now something I had been suspecting around here but hadn't actually caught gulping the evidence......that is until now! Caught on camera! Look closely at the pictures below....
Do you see what I see??
Yep, a toad frog! Can you believe it??? And to think that "Ms. Nature Nut" herself rescued those amphibians from a drying ditch!

It just goes to show you....someone...or something...is always out to get you...no matter how sweet you are!!!!

Until next time...

BEE SWEET! ;)

Julie

Expectations And Surprises

When I go into a hive there are a few things I expect to see. One is the small hive beetle, usually the girls have them corralled and proplised in somewhere. On top I can expect to see them in a corner but mostly at the end of a frame or two. The picture below shows the ends of the frame proplised and the beetles are corralled in the middle with a few bees standing guard over them. Now something unusual I have recently discovered and other beekeepers have noticed it as well, is the bees will feed the beetles while in this area. It has been said that the beetles have learned the "hunger cry" of the bee and instinctively the bee responds with feeding. It's amazing to watch, the beetle will put up it's front legs, almost like a puppy or dog begging for food, and the bee will feed it. I've seen this a couple of times and wish I could get in to photograph it happening. The thing is once the bees move away from the guard barrier the beetles escape and go ramped through the hive and will destroy it if the bees don't gain back control. Before I move ANYTHING in the hive I take my hive tool and go between the hive box and the frame where the beetles are and squish them, I also catch them with my tweezers and kill them, a frame doesn't go back into the hives if I see a beetle on it! (I can't help it) ;)


Other things I expect to see is queen cells. Here in the south we don't have a long winter and our bees start hive building and swarming sometimes in January right up to the first frost. I try to go into our hives at least every 14 to 16 days....however this past week I let it go by and now I have to pay for it. Regular routine maintenance is very important for "backyard", "Hobby", "Weekend", etc. beekeepers. Or I should say, if you don't want your hives to swarm or to lose them entirely. The picture above is of a queen cell that has been chewed from the side, which can mean two things....1. The old queen found it and chewed it open to kill the queen inside before she could hatch, or....2. A new queen hatched and she chewed it open.....usually if there is one queen cell there is more! This particular hive had five on this frame alone! All chewed out except for one. But, if you will look closely at this particular cell.....see how the bottom is chewed out as well? Hmmm...that means she didn't die before she hatched! She's also in here somewhere. When a queen hatches successfully she chews her way out through the bottom, if it's chewed from the side....something else did it.

This makes things even more difficult for someone like me because I HAVE to know what's going on! Most people could walk away from this hive after finding one queen and not think twice about it's future or what even happened...not me, I have to find out. I looked even harder for the "old" queen, which she really isn't "old", just a few months old. But, thankfully I marked her when she hatched out back then. Well, to make a long story short, I couldn't find her (not at first). But I did find the other two! These are things that are "surprises"...things I do NOT expect to see in a hive. So in the end I found the older queen and two of her daughters! The thing that was strange to me is, remember the cell that was chewed and left for dead? She was the first one I found and bless her heart, her wings were chewed, she's a beautiful queen, but will not be able to fly. I'm curious, if what the books say is true about a queen, that she flies from the hive to mate, if she will still just mate with the drones in the hive? Most people would have just killed these queens or at least her, but I can't bring myself to do it. I mean, gee wiz, she survived an attack before she ever even hatched, who am I to snuff her out???

This is the older queen, I didn't find her until I was putting the hive back. This picture is out of order....
The wingless queen is in here but I couldn't get a picture of her at the time.
This little queen is the suspect chewer...can you tell which one she is?Once I had found these two, I still hadn't found the older queen. I didn't want to kill them and I wasn't prepared with queen stations to put them so I let the wingless queen go into the brood box, put a queen excluder on, then put the "chewer queen" in the top.

I also have a "compulsive" disorder.....I HAVE to go back over things to make sure everything is okay before I put them back in place. That means the frames get checked AT least twice during my inspections ;) (drives my husband crazy when he works with me) BUT, this time that was a "good thing"....I found the older queen! SO now we have THREE queens in this ONE hive! I got another excluder and put together another box and just put them one on top of the other...until I can put together a queen box.

You see, the amazing thing about honeybees.....if they hatch out their own queen or queens they will take care of them, the queens have the same hive pheromone. The only one you have to keep them protected from is another queen inside the hive. SO, for now we have a three queened hive!
I went back into the top yesterday (two days later) and the top queen is still doing good. Not a good picture but can you see her below?

I caught her under this marking cage, so I can mark her.
There she is in the picture below, marked in blue. Newly hatched queens are usually chunky. Their abdomen hasn't grown out long and slender, but she has her big "queen spot" behind her head that makes her easier to identify.

I want to get a picture of the wingless queen because she has a honey colored abdomen and she is larger than this one. I put her in the bottom first because she had more bees tending to her than this one did.

We have a "cut out" to do next weekend so this is also a good thing, we may need one of these queens. We have a hive that has been without a queen, that I have to check on today to see if she has hatched. If she didn't make it I have one now ;)

The summers here are very hard on honeybees, we lose a lot of queens but thankfully they know how to prepare ;) The thing is the beekeeper also needs to prepare;)

Well, I need to get Bizzy!

Until next time....

BEE PREPARED ;)

Julie