Daunted...

Slowly, slowly I am starting to feel daunted by the task of looking after bees. There are so many of them and they are everywhere. I can hardly pick up a frame as the bees are always there. They seem to know exactly where my hands are going to go next, and are waiting there for me, so I can gain no purchase on the wood. And I don't want to squash them all or get stung the whole time. And having my fingers covered in honey from when their rogue comb breaks does not help either...

Anyway.
I was a glorious day again and it was decidedly boiling in my beesuit, which should really be called a boiler suit. I will not go into the details; suffice to say, it was uncomfortably hot and when I finally was able to take the suit off I was surprised that there was still all of me there and that nothing had melted away.

I started with the Moon, which was brimming with bees everywhere. The super frames are nearly all drawn out and are being filled (the super is quite heavy). But they still have storage space in the brood box, so I'm not going to super up. The manipulation went all right, but there were just so many bees: in the air, on the frames, on the hive's exterior walls. The Moon bees also love propolis and there are swamps of sticky red stuff slathered all over the hive. Once again they had started drawing out the dummy board (don't the dummies know what a dummy board is and that you're meant to leave it alone?).
Saw neither queen nor eggs, but some brood and lots and lots of store. To me it looked like they were scaling back the laying and trying to get more stores ready for the winter.
Cut off some rogue comb as well as some drone cells. Rebuilding that should keep them busy, too.
Of course I was stung, this time on the left arm, surprisingly enough. No ill effects (for me, at least). Halfway through the inspection the smoker died. That added an element of fun to the proceedings, as I had no way of calming the bees or getting them to scoot.

When I closed the hive up (I think the bees were ecstatic that I finally left them again), I returned to the shed and got the smoker going again. Don't know what happened - it had enough fuel.

Bees licking the honey off my glove

The Star was much quieter. The super was barely in use and the fact that there were so much fewer bees made the inspection much more pleasant. Here I saw the queen, lots of stores again and some well laid-out brood frames. Was stung, this time on my right thumb (again). Not as bad as last time.

It was really weird while I was doing the inspection I always had a number of bees on my glove, licking the honey off them, docile and happy as can be, while around my head buzzed a few angrier bees, somehow intent on finding a hole in my veil, or something similarly disastrous. The head really didn't know what the hand was doing... But the bees on the hand were fun: I could feel them pattering over my hand through the glove and as they walked they must have been exercising their wings, for I felt the vibration of that, too. A strange sensation.
Once again I had to deal with rogue comb as well as drone comb. Is there some gentle or perfect way of doing that? My bees always get very upset when I remove some of their comb.

When I had finished the inspections I went to the equipment shed to take off the suit, clean the hive tool and store everything. I noticed that there was a solitary bee buzzing around, but wasn't too fussed by that. As soon as I had taken the suit off, she showed great interest in me and I realised she had followed me from her colony for the sole purpose of giving me one final sting. And so it was. She showed interest in my left arm and then - of course - went for my face. Had I just moved back, nothing might have happened, but of course she got trapped in my hair and a second later - zit! - there was the sting on my forehead. Needed that like a, well, like a pain in the head...

I think the bees will be happy that I'm gone the next 10 days.

Varroa

So was at the hives again today, to do a full inspection. Before that I thought I'd take a look at the varroa boards. At first I saw nothing. And I thought, Great, no varroa! But I didn't really believe that and I started looking more closely. Then I saw the first one, the another. In a few moments I was seeing nothing but varroa mites and I realised I had gone to the other extreme. So I looked again, trying to count only what I thought with high probability was a varroa mite. The drop in each hive was about 10 for two days, which is ok.

In the photo below the thing at the bottom right is definitely a mite, as you can see its horrible crab-like legs. The other probably is one too, possibly with legs tucked in or chopped off.
I make no apologies for the size of the photo - that way it's easier to see the blighters.

Those might be mites

Have realised that drawing squares on the board will help enormously to count the mites, so that's a job for winter.

After I returned home I read that I should have left the boards in for a week. Will do so next time. But it seems that the hives are not full of varroa.

This is what the mite looks like - enlarged.

Boarding School

You'd think as a teacher with all those holidays we have, it would be a real pain to go into school during the holidays to check up on the hives. That's what I thought, too. But I thought that's the price I pay for having them on site where I can access them everyday, rather than having them at home,where I'd only see the bees at the weekend.
As it turns out, I had to go into school today (and will be there tomorrow, too), as I still have some marking I didn't finish in the chaos of the end-of-term rush. I also need to do some admin, order stationery &c.
But this is meant to be about the bees.

Being in school, I thought I'd use the opportunity to put in the varroa boards so that when I go to the hives again on Saturday (or Sunday) for an inspection, I can do a varroa count. For this purpose, the boards are painted white so it's easier to see the mites on them. Hope that's true....

The varroa board half in, with the one for the second hive propped in waiting

Varroa (more properly and aptly: varroa destructor) are mites that cling onto the bees and suck their blood, thereby weakening them and possibly also giving them lot of lovely diseases. They breed in the larval chambers and then attach themselves to adult bees. Every so often the mites fall off and if you have a mesh floor to the hive and a board underneath you catch the falling mites, who are helpless on the board like on a serving plate. Depending on how many there are on the board you are either ok or in deep trouble.

I have no clue whether I'm meant to be doing that now or should have done it ages ago, I just thought I'd do it. I don't have the feeling that there should be that many mites as my bees all look healthy and happy. But the count will tell.

Lessons to learn

Having supered up about a week ago, I thought I'd take a quick peek today to see how the supers were filling up.
Now, in the past when I went into the supers to top up the rapid feeders, I did not wear any protective equipment and didn't have to, as the bees are lovely and calm. So, even though it was spitting a bit and the weather was slightly clammy, I thought that today I wouldn't kit up, especially as all I was going to do was open up and then close again.

Super activity in the Star hive

I started with the Star hive. Roof came off ok, but the crown board with a loud snap that sent the bees scattering. However, when I did nothing more, but remained motionless, they calmed somewhat and I had a quick peek into the super. They haven;t really started to draw the comb out there and the whole super looked rather empty.

So far, so good.

When opening the Moon hive, I decided to more careful when removing the crown board. I could hear the buzz from inside the hive and knew there were lots of bees inside.

Activity in the Moon super

Still wearing nothing but normal clothes I then made my second mistake. Very carefully, I lifted the crownboard away from the super. However, the first part I lifted away, was on the side facing me and I immediately had a few bees shooting out in a straight line for me. With that uncanny instinct that they have, one went for my bare hand and I had a sting in my left thumb. Realising the Moon crew was not happy, I suited up, but left out the gloves (you can tell where this is going, can't you?). I then took off the rest of the crown board, in the course of which I was stung again, this time in my right thumb.

As soon as the crown board was off, I had no more trouble.

The super was brimming with activity: the bees are busy drawing out comb and storing honey there. They definitely needed the super.

The Super work face in Moon

Weather has now turned bad all of a sudden and it's tipping down, so no wonder the bees were slightly on edge.

Supers

On Thursday, 18th July, I drove back to school and spent two hours in the DT block nailing together super frames, which I then brought out to the hives.

I put the queen excluders on the brood box and then filled the supers with the frames and then put on crown board and roof. Wonder how quickly the bees will fill the super. The weather is finally fine and hot, so here's hoping they fill up quickly and we have a decent honey harvest.

Both hives with supers

Bees don't go on holiday...

On 17th July I came back from my holiday one day later than intended, thanks to TAP's excellent organisational and aviation skills and immediately went into the hives. I literally dropped the luggage off at my house and then drove on to school to check up on how my bees had been doing.

Moon hive was bursting full. The feeder was empty, but the bees had started to build wild comb in the empty super. There's a little entrance hole from the brood box to the super for ventilation or whatever and the bees, obviously feeling cramped in the brood chamber had flown through this and started building their own comb there.

That told me I had to add frames to the super and stop feeding them.

Once again I removed the wild comb and then had hands covered in honey. While this meant I constantly had bees licking at me and my gloves, it also meant that I did not get stung. Perhaps that's a way to go in future? Always make sure I'm covered in honey when I do my hive inspections?

The Moon colony itself was great: all frames drawn out, the outer ones heavy with stores and on the inside ones a beautiful laying pattern. I have a queen that does not like to lay on wire, so where the wire runs in the foundation there tends to be no brood.
The bees seem to like sticking the 'wild comb' at the bottom of the half frames to the side of the hive. So some comb will always rip, but until I get rid of those, I guess that's what will happen.

The Star colony is also doing very well. It's not quite as strong as the Moon, but almost there. Once again the bees here were slightly more aggressive and I constantly had two to three bees circling my head like satellites with a slightly more high-pitched buzz.
My little attempt at engineering the 'wild comb' worked. The add-on comb at the bottom is now straight, sandwiched as it is between the 12x14 frames.

As I had, very stupidly, not made up the super frames, I decided to return to school the nest day (as it was getting late) and make the frames and put the supers on the next day.

Used frame holders for the inspection, which I find invaluable when working on my own. As the first frame tends to be stores only, I pop that on the holder and can then move around the hive more freely. This is particularly important as there are sooooo many bees! I am in constant fear of squashing them and often enough cannot pick up frames as quickly as I want to as they are crawling all over the lugs, or handles, of the frames.

Photos Bee Difficult - 1st July

Once again I am slightly late with my posts.... sorry!

Originally my plan was to inspect the hives immediately after coming back from the school trip, but after seven hours spent on the bus with fractious pupils I was ready to go home and let the bees be bees. As there was no huge urgency to go into the hives on the Friday, I decided to come into school and do the inspection on Saturday, which (being without pupils) would also have given me the peace to focus on the bees properly. I must admit, as a novice beekeeper, I do find it challenging to focus on the inspection and do it properly, when pupils are constantly distracting with enthusiastic questions. Don’t get me wrong: it’s great that they ask questions and are enthusiastic and I enjoy answering the questions, but they do distract me and can lead to less precise hive inspections.

However that all changed when I spoke to the school secretary who told me there would be a photographer in school to take photos for marketing purposes and he wanted to have pupils with bees. A quick calculation concerning drone trapping and a look at my timetable told me that I had exactly one hour on Monday morning to do the inspection and the photos.

As the photos were for marketing purposes, the secretary and I had to agree on pupils to accompany me who would be photogenic, not scared of standing in midst of bees and be trusted to handle the frames. We quickly found two: the son of the headmaster and the daughter of one of my co-beekeepers. Nothing to do with nepotism, naturally. The mother agreed to come along too, so I didn’t have to worry about finding another adult to accompany us in the middle of a busy school morning.

So, as agreed, our little troop was ready and waiting at 9.30 am last Monday. Despite standing on a red carpet, no paparazzo was forthcoming. With time running out, we eventually decided to go to the hive; the photographer would follow when he arrived. Due to time pressure, I was somewhat more stressed and fretted. We kitted up, got the smoker going and walked to the hives. But, due to stress, I left the walkie-talkie at the shed where we kitted up. Luckily we didn’t need it…

It was a warm day, perfect for pulling the roof off the bees' home.

It was at the beginning of the inspection of the moon hive (the first one we opened) that the photographer arrived - and the inspection ceased to be an inspection. But I guess marketing is one of the prices you pay for being able to keep bees at the school.

In a flash, the inspection was no longer about the bees and what they were doing, but about the pupils holding frames, looking interested and pointing out things. They were both very good at this, I must say. It was also interesting to note that the headmaster, who had brought the photographer to the hive, stayed well clear of the hives while his son stood in the middle of the swirling bees.

I did make use of the time the photographer was taking with the children to examine other frames, checking for laying patterns, pollen and honey. I explained as much as I could to the pupils while they stood in carefully positioned postures.

Suddenly the photographer said, he'd like more bees in the air. Now, it is the object of a hive inspection to disrupt the bees as little as possible. Sometimes you do have to shake them off a frame to have a closer look at something, but generally you do not want to disturb the bees too much, as disturbances make them angry and when bees get angry - well, they sting. So asking me to try and get more bees to fly around was a bit like saying: could you roll in some bees and see if they sting you. Knowing our bees are quite good-natured, I thought I'd risk it nevertheless (although I wouldn't roll in them). The bees weren't happy about being forced to fly and their humm increased in pitch. The pupils stood their ground bravely and continued to look with interest at the frames with bees bombarding them a bit. So the photographer got his swarm and after a few more frames of film and hive, he left us towards the end of the moon inspection to finish the inspection without the flash of future fame illuminating us.

While going through the moon, I broke open some honeycomb (the bees are bracing quite  bit) and had very sticky fingers thereafter. The bees soon caught on and I had a resident bee on my finger, licking up honey throughout the whole moon inspection. Though sweet, it did not simplify matters. Quite generally, I had the feeling the bees were doing their best to be in my way as much as possible and sometimes just lifting a frame out of the box was almost impossible because wherever my finger roamed, there was a bee.

The moon hive is looking quite good. There are only a few frames not drawn out as comb and the wild comb is mostly straight down, meaning it doesn't make taking out the frames difficult. We saw a worker hatching and the queen. But, to be quite honest, after all the disruption with the photos, I did not take quite such a careful look as I would have otherwise. Cut away some drone comb, which was yucky again, as you almost invariably tear through some larvae and the white slush is painful to see.

The star is not looking as good. The bees were much more agitated and I was stung twice; luckily no-one else. More frames are not drawn out as comb yet. This could be due to drift and also the fact that I cut away some comb last time. Here the wild comb was once again stuck all across frames, making taking out frames difficult. I had to remove quite a lot of wild comb. I have hung long frames between the short ones, in the hope this will help the bees to make straight wild comb. We'll see.

In the middle of handling a frame, a pupil pointed out that my glove had ripped, which it had, completely. Strangely though, I hadn’t noticed at all. Anyway, I put on a new one, which I almost didn’t get into. I could see in my mind’s eye an endless string of ripped gloves; I almost decided to go bare-handed. While trying to sort out the wild comb, a part of it actually fell off. Luckily it did not land in the hive. All in all not an easy inspection.