Supers!

The season has got off to a flying start, despite some uncertainties and messings around with Moon queens and each hive has one more or less full super. While I will need to extract that soon (I assume most of this will be rape honey, which sets and crystallises rather quickly, making it difficult to spin out), I also needed to give the bees more space to store their honey in.

Having spent the previous two evenings testing the patience of my neighbour with my hammering, I drove down to the hives with 20 super frames all made up as well as a brand new super. I didn't open the hives completely, merely putting the new supers on top of the full ones. The Star, as I had foreseen from the previous inspection, was fairly full to bursting, so obviously needs the super. The Moon, for a change, was quieter, but that is also normal given that the new queen has only just started laying. However, I'm sure they'll be glad of the supers and the extra storage space.

The new set-up of high rises

All normal, all clear

With the Moon hive obviously doing fine (but we shall see), I needed to now only reassure myself that all was well with the nuc and the Star. Previously, the nuc had shown tendencies to swarm and the Star could kick off soon, too.

In the Star all is calm. The super is fairly full, but the brood chamber is still not fully laid out: the bees still have four frames of stores in the brood box. As the hive is getting a bit full (the bees are starting to draw out comb in interesting places, which I interpret as them complaining about a lack of space to draw it out properly), I will super up as soon as I can (have to nail the super frames together first). Throughout the hive I found no signs of queen cells. In fact I only discovered two or three queen cups, so swarming does not seem to be on the Star's immediate agenda.

A whole frame full of stores from the Star

I was rather more worried about the nuc. Last time I had looked I had seen a queen cell. However today there was no queen cell in sight, only one or two queen cups. So here, too, the colony seems to have slowed down to business as usual; thank God!
And the queen was beautifully green and visible.

My plan now is to check the Moon. If all is well there, then I will amalgamate the Star with the nuc, keeping the nuc queen. If not, I will bring the nuc and the Moon together. However, I'm sure the bees have other ideas...

Moon queen in lay

Comb with eggs (not visible on the photo)

Having received a beekeeping jacket through the post, for the quick hive inspection or if I just need to add or take off supers, I thought I'd use it today for a quick random sample inspection of Moon frames to see whether the queen there was laying. As I didn't have much time, I merely donned the jacket and didn't smoke either. Because the weather was on the slightly colder, windier side of what bees like, they were none to pleased to have me open their home and let me feel it. I must say I did feel more vulnerable than I would have thought with only the jacket on (and as if to prove the point was stung on the thigh).
Good news: in my random sample of three frames I definitely saw eggs in workers' comb, so assume the queen is laying and that I don't have a colony of drone laying workers. I will further investigate next week, when the queen will have had more of a chance to show her mettle.

Green queen

What you need to catch and mark a queen

Knowing I had a queen in the nuc, I also knew I had to mark her if I wanted to have a chance of finding her easily ever again. Promising the pupils great excitement (after all, I've never marked a queen before and it's not exactly an everyday event), three of them accompanied me to the nuc.

As if to prove how difficult it is to find an unmarked queen even when you only have three frames to choose from, the queen remained sulkily hidden. Instead we did see a number of queen cups, one of which had an egg in it! I couldn't believe it - surely the nuc hive, which is half empty, isn't seriously considering swarming. Doing a swarm control of the swarm control is taking things a bit too far in my opinion. Obviously the bees think differently. Anyway, I destroyed that cell and will have to keep close tabs on the nuc to ensure the queen stays where I want/need her.

Unfortunately the queen did not show herself while the pupils were in attendance. After they all left to go to the various pursuits and activities the school day offers I went through the frames again and again, ever more frantically. The bees put up with it very sweetly, though their temper was ever more closely matching mine. Frustration is the word. Finally I saw her. Now, trying to catch the queen while holding the frame is not easy. I used this plastic pipe-like instrument that apparently makes catching her really easy. Apparently: I had her, then she escaped, then I had her again and this time I managed to trap her and transfer her into the marking chamber (with her almost escaping three times int he process). But even then she did not play along. The marking chamber has a lattice on one side and you gently squash the queen against this, back towards the lattice, so you can paint the dot on her back. The queen obviously only ever put her stomach towards the lattice. I don't know if there's some trick to making her turn around, but if there is, I certainly don't know it and she didn't respond to cajoling, threats or any turn of the chamber.
In the end she did what was required and with shivering hand, I marked her green. Phew!

A newly 'crowned' queen

The mystery of the Moon solved

Last Friday (16th May) I went to inspect the nuc, hoping to mark the queen there and once again opened up the Moon to see what - if anything - was going on in there. This was more a way to kill time, as I had three pupils with me with the promise to witness the marking of a queen, but the nuc queen was not playing ball and was untraceable. So, to give the nuc time to settle again (and the queen to think about her ways), I opened up the Moon.

Depressingly empty Moon comb

Once again, a general feeling of abandonment reigned in the Moon with all comb empty of brood. This is not good, but one positive side of it all is that there cannot be many varroa in the Moon as there is no brood for them to propagate in.

Then, out of the blue, on one of the frames I was checking more perfunctorily than anything, I saw a queen. Now, I know I have not been good at finding queens (especially unmarked ones), but this was definitely a queen. I quickly separated the frame from the others and scrutinised it closely. Of course, I found no trace of the queen, no matter how hard I looked or how gently I brushed aside the other bees.

Where's that dratted queen?

The presence of the queen explains why the Moon is so calm (though slowly dying, Egypt, dying). She has obviously not mated yet (what is she waiting for? - the weather has been great!), so I hope she does that very soon, or else I will have to get rid of her, a prospect I do not relish, and put the nuc queen in the Moon. But good to know there IS a queen there.

Nuc queen

After my worry with the Moon, I decided to open up the nuc, to see whether the second queen cell had developed into a queen. As I knew the nuc wouldn't swarm, I thought checking the nuc might give me a hint as to what might have happened with the Moon.

This inspection didn't take very long as there are only three fully functional frames in the nuc (and two new ones, which the bees have not drawn out yet). At first I continued puzzled, but I then discovered eggs and larvae - so the nuc had a new queen that was laying! I could barely suppress a whoop of joy.

Brood! (the little white, worm-like thing)

But where was the queen? The open queen cell was easy to see, but the queen remained elusive.

The empty queen cell

It was then I saw a large cadaver lying on the floor of the hive. Surely not! I examined the body and found it to be a drone. So where was she? I finally found her, as shy as all bee queens are, running from the light. I wanted to mark her there and then, but she slipped away from me, just as I was bringing my equipment to bear.

At least I have one good, laying queen. Am very relieved about that. My plans are to mark her on Friday and, should the Moon remain queenless, introduce her into the Moon. If the Moon queen suddenly makes an appearance (she might be a bit of a diva), then I can requeen the Star with the new Moon queen, hoping she will be as prolific as her grandmother and mother (makes me realise that I've already been through quite a number of queens...).

All still very exciting!

Queenless and clueless

Slightly worried, I opened the Moon to check what had happened to the sealed queen cell I had last seen on the 24th April. The super looked quite busy, with lots of bees and drawn out comb, so I thought maybe, maybe I was in luck and the colony hadn't swarmed. In fact over half of the supers are capped, proving the Moon bees to once again be the busy ones.

However, when I opened the brood chamber I realised it was very quiet, much quieter than usual. Had the Moon bees swarmed? I had to assume so.

A far too quiet Moon colony

As I checked through the frames looking for the sealed queen cells I must inevitably find, my consternation grew and grew: there were no queen cells (and no queen I could find). I could see a few queen cups, but none had eggs or larvae in them. In fact, I could not see any brood anywhere - it was like all the young had died out. So had the bees swarmed with an infertile queen? Would they do that? I have grown to realise the bees do not read the same books that I do, so they rarely behave as described, but swarming with a queen that isn't laying makes no sense. And she obviously isn't: there is no brood whatsoever. And even if the queen had swarmed, she would surely have laid a few eggs, at least a few new queens, otherwise why swarm?

I was, not to put too fine a point on it, clueless as to what the bees had gotten up to.

On thinking about it, I now have three theories (ask me again tomorrow and I'll probably have a fourth):
1. Something happened to the queen, so the Moon is (once again) queenless with no possibility to requeen, as there are no eggs from which to raise a queen. While this sounds likely, what then remains inexplicable is that the bees are carrying on with business as usual. Surely I'd have drone-laying workers if the colony was truly and irrevocably queenless.
2. While I was inspecting the Moon, the queen was on her wedding flight, busy mating with the drones. As I type this she is happily back in her colony, laying away. Sounds too good and simple to be true, but there were fewer drones in the Moon when I opened up. Fingers crossed...
3. I didn't spot the queen, but she was in the Moon, hiding and waiting for her wedding flight. This is possible, but it is not quite understandable why she hasn't flown so far, as the weather has been fair of late.

Time will tell...

In all cases the fact that there are so much fewer bees can be explained not by a swarm but by the fact that there have been no eggs for almost four weeks now. The bees are still working themselves to death (literally, unfortunately), but no new ones are coming to make up for the losses. That would adequately explain the Moon's depletion.

Swarm!

Being known as the teacher who does the bees has its advantages. One of them manifested itself today when a pupil called me, saying there was a swarm on the premises. Basically I have over 200 little helpers who can alert me to anything untoward or unusual in the apian world.

Having decided to check up on the Moon today, fearing the new queen might be ready to swarm, this news worried me. I admit I didn't do my maths properly, but I was pretty sure the new queen would have had enough time to hatch, practise flying, mate and populate queen cells so the colony would be ready to swarm. The Moon had wanted to swarm before, so why not again? The irony of it all was that the swarm had obviously emerged today, so possibly the Moon bees had beaten me by a matter of a few hours.

A swarm among brambles

As I still do not have the necessary equipment to catch a swarm, I merely inspected the swarm and persuaded myself that the bees looked smaller than the school bees and so were probably a wild swarm, probably from the bees that live in the masonry of the school building, funnily enough just above my classroom window.

Nevertheless I rushed to the school apiary to check up on the Moon.

All quiet with the Star

Not being all too sure how quickly the Star might build up, I decided to open the hive up after a week. My experience with the Moon has made me more wary of suddenly swarming bees, so I may be being overcautious. Still, better safe than sorry.
It also gave me the chance to take some pupils out again. After all the excitement of having new bees in the school last year, I feel that interest is possibly slightly on the wane: the bees are not in the pupils' consciousness as such and so I take every opportunity to involve pupils.

Honey in the making

The super is fairly empty. Yes, there are bees working away there, storing honey, but there aren't many. So the Star is far from overcrowded. The nectar stored in the supers is not capped yet, so hasn't become honey yet. This is probably mostly rape, which will probably be a headache quite in its own right.

Inside the brood box, the picture was much the same as last time: lots of stores, some brood, a clearly marked queen, some queen cups of no serious intent and lots of bees.

It's funny: when you take a frame out, a lot of bees are often hanging from the bottom, doing morning gymnastics or God knows what. I really don't know what they should be doing there, but they probably know. Another thing in which the bees are way ahead of me!

Hang in there!

When I removed one frame I left behind a poor bee bridging the gap and not sure which way she should go. She eventually made up her mind, but watching her do the splits over the gap was quite something.

Mind the gap

Not the best brood pattern

One thing did worry me somewhat: although I did not look closely, I had the feeling there weren't many young larvae and possibly not many eggs, either. The laying pattern was not as perfect as it has been in the past. Perhaps the queen or the bees are feeling swarmy and this might explain the queen's somewhat more erratic laying habits; but surely, in this case there should be queen cells or at least some slightly more serious attempt at raising a new queen?