Bee-saster

I was going to inspect the bees either today or tomorrow, but received an email from one of the groundsmen in the school that one hive had fallen over. So what I thought would only be a leaning tower actually fell down. A nightmare.
Luckily, and truly luckily, a member of staff (who I shall name G), who lives more or less on site, offered to help me sort out the mess and together, after many stings, we got everything up and running again.
But first things first.
Pre-warned by the email, I didn't bother to take a smoker to the Star, but did decide to wear the leather gloves. Quite rightfully the bees were going to be in a foul mood and smoke would not calm them in any way - maximum protection was the only way forward. Well, G unfortunately did not quite go for maximum, wearing only ankleboots, which he soon rued, when ten bees made themselves uncomfortable in his boots. All credit to him that as soon as he had taken off the offending boot with three surviving bees, he procured some wellies and returned to help me.
The sight that greeted us was horrible.

A beekeeper's nightmare

The supers and broodbox were on the ground, all in awkward positions. A lot of the capped honey had broken out of the frames, many bees had been squashed against stores, so that most of the honey frames looked like squashed fly biscuits (though it was a case of squashed bees). Bees, wasps and slugs were all over the debris of  the super frames, the roof was damaged considerably and the hive stand had collapsed.

The black things on the capped honey are all squashed bees

In fact, it was probably a rotten or weak hive stand that led to the hive falling down rather than unevenness in the floor, though this wouldn't have helped.

Sorting out the brood box

First thing I did was to get all boxes the right way up and in various places where they wouldn't be in the way, so I could sort through them. Priority was the brood box, which I managed to place on two plastic flower tubs. The brood frames were all aslant and stuck down in this position. The dummy board was so stuck down that the top broke off the board, leaving me empty-handed. So I prised a frame from the middle out: what a mess! I removed all frames and then put them back in, but eliminated all short frames, because the comb the bees had built on to the bottom of these had become stuck onto other frames. While dealing with this mess of wax, brood, bees and honey - close to despair, I might add - I may have accidentally swatted the queen aside, with uncertain fate. I thought I saw a green dot disappear somewhere. Having taken all the frames out, I was in for a surprise: where the frames left a cavity, due to the angle they lay in the brood box, the bees had built up comb and had quite a bit of honey stored there. I junked it all. Much like with the queen, I should have been more careful, probably collected it in a plastic ice tub, if only for my own delectation. But in a nightmare scenario like that one, I only wanted to get the bees back on track. If ever that should happen again, I might be better prepared.

While I was doing this, heroic G returned, richer by a pair of wellies and seven stings in one ankle. Unperturbed, he started fixing the stones on which the hive stand had been placed. It was impossible to get this straight, so we settled on a construction that seemed stable, if not level. G's inventiveness in this area was remarkable and he wheelbarrowed various bits of wood and metal to the apiary, which we assembled jigsaw-style to a hopefully firm foundation.

A lot of the honey stored in the supers was broken. I put as much back as I could and hope the bees will sort it all out. The new super I put on before my holiday to Spain had only been drawn out, but has no honey in it. So the bees will hopefully collect some honey in that.

Standing tall and proud.

The Star is standing again. The broodbox has three new 12x14 frames in it, but is otherwise unchanged. Hopefully the queen is in there, too. The two old supers are probably useless for honey harvesting, as they've been god knows where with god knows what all over them. I will probably leave them for the bees, but it will depend on how (if!) the bees clear them up.

What makes the whole incident so frustrating is that the Star was obviously doing really well. The queen was good, laying well and the bees, from what I can see, are a good mixture of dark and light, which means they should thrive and collect lots of honey.

After having sorted out the Star, G and I were thoroughly drained and drenched, but decided to check up on the Moon, too. What's done is done, after all.

Glad to say here everything was fine, more or less. The bees have not spared with propolis in the two months they've been alone and getting each separate storey off was a challenge. They have also obviously forgotten that periodically the roof gets ripped off their house, the rooms get shifted around and they are expected to behave while this is happening. They were quite sting-y and excitable. Due to the fact that they were pressed for space before I supered up, they had built comb between the supers, which I broke, but didn't remove, as I thought I'd do this when I harvest. We didn't see the queen, but we did see a beautiful laying pattern with many eggs. The queen seems to be in good lay and the colony as a whole looks strong and healthy. They have also drawn out the new super and started to store some nectar there.

An order and peace of sorts

We had a huge amount of mess in the apiary: damaged frames, comb, dead bees, newspaper, honey - you name it - it was there (well, if it had to do with bees: no cakes or haircurlers). Although maybe I should have salvaged some of the wax or the wood (I know it's all precious), I just wasn't prepared for that and threw it all away. Also, I really couldn't face sifting through all that gunk with bees dive-bombing us, and so we bagged it and binned it. We left the apiary as clean as we could and I hope the bees can sort out the rest. I have faith in the Star and am sure the bees there will do a great job. The Moon looks slightly wonky and now I'm worried that may go, too. Surely not...

What a day!
And thank you G: without your heroic help I would have taken one look at the apiary and just cried.

Not so super

The beginning of my summer holidays was busy, which wouldn't have been a problem if the hives had been inspected regularly and were up and running. As it was, they each need at least an hour's worth of attention, just so I can get back into the feel of them. Unfortunately, I didn't have this time, but I did guess that after over a month the bees would need more space.

A super and 20 frames ready to go

So I quickly hammered together enough frames for two supers (took me two hours for 20 frames). Decided to dispense with Hoffmann self-spacers for the super and just leave them hanging freely. Shouldn't make much of a difference in a super.

With the frames and an empty super I quickly drove to the school. Because no-one was in school and I'd left the keys there (classic), I had to organize the keys first. Another problem of school beekeeping: access during the holidays. Luckily we almost always have someone on site.
No-one had checked on the bees for so long that the shed door and padlock were completely covered in spider webs.

The actual site of the hives didn't look much different and slightly neglected: long grass everywhere and no clear path to the hives. I think the groundsmen no longer mow around the hives because they apparently get stung the whole time when they do. Surely not! The bees are always ever so kind with me...

A slightly overgrown apiary

Both hives showed signs of good activity with many bees flying in and out with pollen clearly visible. The Moon seemed quite full, but not desperate for new space. Perhaps they've just swarmed again recently.

Just to be on the safe side, I supered up again, putting the new super above the honey I wanted to take off in May in some futile hope the bees passing through might warm it and make it more easily harvestable.

The Star showed more signs of space issues. The Star bees have obviously become real busy bees and have been foraging ferociously. With no new supers to store their honey, they had started building comb in the small space between crown board and roof. Now the bees, already confused last year as to where their hive ends, will never get that everything above the crown board is not-hive. Here it was high time for a new super, so I hope the bees are a lot happier now with an extra super. Both Moon and Star now have three supers on them and I hope that'll be enough for this year as I have no more readily available (would have to order).

'Wild' comb above the crown board in the Star

I also noticed the Star has a distinct lean towards the left. The weather must have led to a shift in the ground and thus the bricks on which the hives are standing slipping slightly. Anyway, the Star is now rivalling Pisa. Because I didn't want the honey frames drawn out on the wonk, I hung them in the opposite direction to all the other super frames. Hopefully that won't confuse the bees too much.

The leaning Star

As soon as I'm back from my Spain holiday, I will have to do a decent inspection of both hives.

All for nothing

Due to a motorcycle accident I had on 5th June 2014 I will be unable to look after the bees for quite a time, as I am not well enough on my legs and don't have the core strength to lift heavy things either. This means the bees will run wild until I can look after them again. All my careful planning and work with the queens has therefore been more or less pointless and I have no clue whether I'll be able to extract the honey currently in the supers in any simple way.
Although I always wanted to train up a second beekeeper in the school for situations such as these (not that I anticipated having an accident - I was thinking more of illness or holidays), all attempts to do this failed for one reason or another; schools are busy environments, I guess. My accident has made me realise that it is vital we have one and I hope to have a second soon.

Voracious readers

Two days after having newspapered together the green queen with her court and the Star hive, I went to have a look whether all had gone as planned. The idea was that the bees should have chewed through the newspaper and found sweet unity together. Indeed, when I got to the Star, a covering of fuzz lay beneath it - obviously the remains of the dailies and tabloids which the bees had consumed in a rather different way to how we usually do. But was the queen all right?

Headlines down low

Having taken off the supers (the old one was very heavy - good news for the honey crop!), I saw that the bees had devoured all the reading material I had given them. Looking into the nuc's brood box, I saw the green queen happily moving about. So everything worked out as I had hoped and the green queen is now the new Star queen.

The wall has been breached!

The only thing I had to do was put the three frames from the nuc that had brood on them into the main brood body of the Star hive. This was not quite as simple as it sounds and the feather was put to extensive use, as all frames that were no longer going to be used had to be clear of bees. Try explaining to a bee that the room she has been using so far suddenly will cease to exist. Eventually all was back to normal and I stored the extra equipment after all bees had left it. The Star hive is now full to bursting, so I suspect they will want to swarm soon. It never ends....

Everything back to normal

Marie Antoinette

Now that I know which queen is where and why, I inspected Moon, Star and nuc (or should I call it (mushroom) Cloud?) to see how they are doing.
The new Moon queen is laying beautifully with a good laying pattern (just as it should be) and some frames are completely laid out already. She's obviously on her 2000-a-day (eggs, not fruit & veg), as eggs seemed to be everywhere. Some frames are not drawn out and the new super is as yet unused. With so much to keep the bees busy, I hope they won't think of swarming any time soon.
I didn't see the queen herself, which is disappointing, also because I need to mark her.
As this queen is doing well, I thought I would exchange the Star queen with the new green queen, which I've been wanting to do for a while now.
The green queen is also laying fastidiously and the nuc is a lovely little colony.

Last view of the yellow Star queen - RIP

In the Star all is also well, though I saw lots of drones and took off a whole row of capped drone cells. As I wanted to introduce the green queen into the Star, I caught the yellow queen, which once again was not as easy as it should be. Somehow they never want to be caught...

Having put her to one side, I covered the brood box of the Star with newspaper, put an empty broodbox over it and filled it with the frames from the nuc. Newspaper on top of that separated the nuc bees from the Star bees in the supers. The theory is that the bees will chew their way through the newspaper and by the time they have, the Star colony will have accepted the green queen which I have foisted on them. Hope that all works that way.

Something for the bees to read

The Starscraper with newspaper separating the green queen and her court
from the rest of the Star colony

The Star hive now looks like a skyscraper, or more like the leaning tower of Pisa, as I have discovered that the brick on one side must have slid, as the hive is no longer level, but lopsided.




After having closed the Starscraper, I then had to kill the old Star queen. This was undoubtedly one of the more unpleasant things I've had to do in my life and certainly the worst thing I've ever done with the bees. Still feel sad and bad about it.

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!