Our Last Hive Did Not Make It Through The Extreme Winter

Dara has been very positive about our one remaining hives survival. I kept saying, "I think they are dead" and she kept saying "no way". This is one case where I wish I was wrong. 

I found this small cluster of dead bees in the center of the hive. They did not have the numbers to make it through the brutally cold winter. Bees keep warm in the winter by forming what is called the "winter cluster". The worker bees cluster around the queen in the center of the hive and actually shiver to raise the temperature to around 81 degrees F. Once the queen starts to lay again the bees ramp up the shivering to bring the cluster temperature to around 93 degrees F. This hive did not have the numbers to keep everyone warm.

They did draw out a lot of comb. I will use this comb in swarm traps this spring to attract local honey bees. The last two years I have bought my colonies from a local bee supplier. He drives down to Georgia every spring and brings back hundreds of boxed colonies. I think part of my problem has been buying colonies from down south and expecting them to acclimate to our temperature extremes.

I will be baiting my hives and building 3-4 swarm traps this spring. If I catch bees, I will be a bee keeper this year. If I don't, I guess I get a year off.

At some point the original queen died or left. I found 5-6 queen cells on the comb. I will be making a bunch of mason bee houses this year. They are great pollinators and need no management at all. I hope I catch a couple swarms this spring. One of these days we will enjoy some honey produced on the homestead.

Feeding Bees In A Top-Bar Hive

We have had bad luck keeping bees these last two seasons. Out of the four colonies we have bought and installed in our hives, we have one colony left. And that colony is not very robust. I believe part of the reason is the bees we buy come from Georgia. Our local bee supplier drives down to Georgia every spring and brings back hundreds of colonies. These bees are acclimated to a southern climate with mild winters. I have yet to get one of these colonies through our more aggressive mid-west winters.

I am planning on trying to capture locally adapted colonies this spring. I have done a lot of research and I feel confident that I can build swarm traps this winter and catch some swarms this spring. I will do a more detailed post on swarm traps and the process of catching swarms after I build the traps.

I have reservations about feeding bees sugar syrup as a general practice. My feeling is if your colony grows accustom to getting some of their food inside the hive they will be less robust foragers and you will breed this trait into them over time. That said, the hive I have left this year has completely eaten through its honey reserves for the winter and if I do not feed them I might as well just empty the hive. I will not buy another colony again. I will try to get this one through the winter, but if they do not make it, they will be the last hive I pay money for.

If you need to feed your hive you can do it very easily. The only equipment you need is a couple mason jars with lids and something to hold them upside down. I bought a couple holders made for this purpose from my local bee supplier, they were cheap and very good at what they do. I took the plastic holders and screwed them to a piece of wood. The mason jar lids need tiny holes in them to let the sugar syrup slowly drip out.

The sugar syrup is pretty simple to make. It is a 2 : 1 ratio of white table sugar to water. This will be thick and will slowly drip out of the holes in the lid when turned upside down. Once the bees find it they will constantly harvest it until it is gone.

The reason I screwed the jar holders to the board is so I could use them in my top-bar hives. The plastic holders are specifically made for Langstroth hives, but with a little modification and they will work in top-bar hives. The bees will find the sugar syrup pretty quickly and start to bring it over to the comb in the hive. I have drilled holes in my follower boards to let the bees come and go through them. However, there is a gap below the follower boards that the bees use instead. That is a design flaw in the way I constructed the follower boards. No big deal in the long run though.

I put one pint of sugar syrup on each side of the main hive. You can't see it in these pictures, but the top-bar next to each of these feeders has a board hanging down similar to the ends of the hive, the follower board. This keeps the center of the hive small making it is easier for the bees to keep themselves warm through the winter. I will have to replace the sugar syrup a couple times throughout the winter if I want the colony to make it. I will only open the hive on the warmest day in the forecast so I do not freeze the bees out. Here is hoping they make it through this winter.

Well I'll Bee

 I opened up my hives for the first time since I installed the new colonies. They both are doing great. In my previous post on bees I mentioned one of the hives was lost. After seeing no activity in the hive for days, I saw bees coming and going a week after I thought they were gone.

I don't know if a new swarm came in and set up shop or if the original queen managed to keep the hive going and I just didn't notice it. The hive in question is the one that had the dead queen in it when I installed them.

 

 You need to make sure your bees have enough room in the hive or they will go into swarm mentality. In a top bar hive set up you have what are called follower boards. These can be moved left and right in the hive to make the center bigger or smaller. When I opened up the hives they were both almost full of comb.

 The new top bar design I am using this year seems to be way better than the old style. The bees are drawing comb on the triangular edging I added to the bars. I did not see any cross combing. I recommend this style of comb guide over the flat bar with a line of wax in a groove.

 Here are some bees on our oregano flowers. I am not sure if these are our bees but the odds are really good.

This is our wormwood. This picture was taken after Dara gave it a pretty good pruning. This perennial is very hardy and does well in our climate. Wormwood is a insect deterrent and can be used to make a tea that is effective against aphids, caterpillars, flea beetles and moths. Don't use wormwood tea on edible plants.

 One of the best flowers you can plant for bees is Borage. Borage is a continuously flowering plant. The flowers are a beautiful blue and are quite delicious in a salad. 

 Borage is an annual but once you plant it it will come back every year from the seeds it drops. It is a good companion plant for tomatoes. The leaves are edible with a cucumber like flavor. They contain a very small amount of alkaloids that can be harmful in large quantities.

I let a lot of alluim (onion, leeks) plants go to flower throughout the garden. Bees absolutely love the flowers, who am I to argue with bees.

I Am Going To Bee So Happy When I Get Some Honey

I decided to try a different top bar design this year. I found that comb would break off of the flat top bars and read that this method is better. I bought some cove moulding to use as a comb guide and some very small nails. 

I had to drill pilot holes to get through the oak moulding. I rubbed some bees wax on the edge of each piece of moulding. 

This is the damage wax moths can do to wood. These are cedar top bars. I was pulling dead larvae out of the holes when I cleaned them up. 

Thousands of bees on the dining room table. The cats kept coming up to the boxes and sniffing, then running away. These bees were packaged and picked up from Georgia by my local bee supplier in the same day.

No matter how ridiculous you look, always tuck your pants into your socks. I have heard first hand accounts of horrible / hilarious stories relating to bee stings and naughty bits. 

This is when I discovered that the queen that came with this hive was dead. Bummer.

Not sure how long she made it but she looked like she had been dead for a while. You see all that white stuff  on the bottom? That is a sugary substance that the colony will eat away to free the queen.

Luckily my bee supplier always gets extra queens. He gave me a marked queen. Can you tell which one is the queen? This queen has been packaged with worker bees to feed her.

After I got back from my emergency trip to the bee suppliers house I forgot to do something very important. Can you see what is wrong with this image? I am not rocking the stylish jeans tucked into socks look that is popular with the youth these days. Luckily I did not have an incident while I dumped the bees into their new home.

Here I am closing up the hive. For all the good that did me. I will elaborate later.

I am installing the sugar water that came with the colony. I have a hole drilled in the separator board so the bees can leave the main hive area and get food while still in the hive. 

Here I am admiring my work. I made a critical mistake though. The hive that had the healthy queen had been together for days and the colony had enough time to accept the queen. The colony I put the new marked queen into did not care for her to much. I did not put a stopper on the entrance and all of the bees left the hive. I checked them this morning and they were all gone. I don't mind making mistakes I just don't like the ones that are $80 a pop. The other hive is doing well. I hope they make it through the winter so I can possibly split the hive next spring to put in my empty hive. 

Busy Bees

Here is a short video of our bee colony. They have almost filled the hive with honey and brood comb. After they make it through the winter I plan on raising a new queen and splitting the hive in the spring.