A fond farewell

I did not expect much of this inspection, as last time we had left both hives with no queen. But I did have hopes that the Star might have a mated and laying queen. However, (main) purpose of the inspection was to bid a very fond and tearful farewell to Goulwenn, who has helped so much with the bees over the past year and more. Readers of this blog will know how invaluable his help has been. So, what I'd like to do today, after I have reported the little there is to report, is to give the floor to Goulwenn and photos of what was his last (regular) inspection of the school bees.

We started with the Moon and found, as expected, a whole host of queen cells. Some of these were architecturally questionable at best and we removed about six, leaving only one well-formed and well-situated cell.

Discarded queen cells - thus quickly is a palatial room destroyed!

The Star was a bit of a surprise. While we found the empty queen cell and must therefore infer that the queen has hatched, she is not laying yet and we could not find her. However, we did find another sealed queen cell. This should not be if there is a viable queen in the colony. Having had so many difficulties with queens lately, we decided to leave the cell where it was and see what would happen (if we have any possibility of finding that out).

The mystery cell

Hopefully, fingers crossed, next inspection I will see eggs in both hives.

And that's all about the inspection. I now give you Goulwenn, with heartfelt thanks and gratefulness.

Cap for additional head protection

Goulwenn's unique tool hook technique

 

Always careful not to squash any bees

 

Thank you for all your help!

Good bye - and hope to see you soon!

Not the executioner royal

I checked through the hive records last night and it seems the paint - though possibly the culprit in the latest episode of reginicide - is not to blame. Here are the facts:
Moon queen marked on 20th April, still laying on 30th April and probably gone 7th May, definitely gone 15th May.
Star queen marked 27th May, still laying 9th June but gone by 30th June.
2nd Star queen marked 30th June, gone by 9th July.
2nd Moon queen marked 18th July- and we know what happened to her.

What is shocking in this is that the hives have been through four queens already this year, but even more astonishing is that from 7th or 15th May till beginning July the Moon had no laying queen (though never any apparent decrease in numbers of bees in the colony) and - for whatever reasons - failed to raise a queen once. Drift from the Star could have kept bee numbers up, but it is extraordinary for the colony to survive six weeks queenless I would have thought.
Or did they raise a queen in the middle of that time who laid for a few days and then was dispatched unceremoniously?

Back to a very clueless square one...

Marking queens for sacrifice

Today, finally, I think we solved the mystery of the disappearing queens. With Goulwenn as trusty side-kick at my side, we did a double inspection: while he inspected the Moon, I looked into the Star. Because of this double act we have no photos of the inspection (also because I forgot the camera...)

The Star was quickly inspected and checked: the super is almost empty and the brood box not overpopulated. There is definitely no queen there as there was no brood at any stage of development. I set aside an empty brood frame to exchange for one from the Moon with eggs on, so the Star can raise a queen (ever hopeful that the Moon did in fact have a laying queen).

I was not disappointed in this expectation: the Moon in fact has a laying queen, as evidenced by the brood frames. While I am still somewhat concerned that there are four frames not even drawn out in the brood box, the bees are obviously busy collecting as two supers are getting very heavy.
But back to the queen: I was ecstatic that we had a laying one, as this means we could introduce one into the Star and the line of Ronian regents, so seriously tested of late, can continue. We introduced a frame with brood and a sealed queen cell (why is there a sealed queen cell there?) into the Star, so they can go about making their own. And then, Goulwenn with his eagle eyes spotted the queen! She was a darker queen again, sleek and sultry. I caught her and proceeded to mark her. I waited a bit to let the paint dry and then reintroduced her into the hive. Imagine our surprise when she was mobbed and then balled by bees. The bees packed around her so tightly, we were not able to see her again. Although we tried to uncover her, it was in vain. I'm not sure whether the bees stung, suffocated or overheated her, but I am sure the queen, after a few minutes of this handling, was dead.

Why would the bees attack their own queen? Mulling this over, our first tentative theory was that the paint must cover the queen's scent (possibly it hadn't dried sufficiently). Although it's specialist queen marking paint, it obviously somehow masks the queen's scent, so that the workers attack her when she is put in their hive. This would mean that in the past every time I marked a queen, I was actually condemning her to death. So I was the culprit (and Republican) all along! Trust humans to mess things up...

I will now go through the records this year and check whether each incident of marking is followed by the queen disappearing, which would be fairly conclusive proof. One thing I know for sure: if both Moon and Star rear a queen again now, I will NOT mark her!

Loony Queens

I was eagerly awaiting this inspection as I hoped it would finally resolve all queen issues in both Star and Moon. To recap: last inspection there had been no trace of a queen in the Moon, though I had hopes she was in there, but not yet mated. The Star had just requeened and I had been midwife to a new Star queen.
Goulwenn did the inspection, to get him more confident, as I sincerely hope he will continue beekeeping when he moves to his new school.

Opening the Star (note the cap under the suit to protect the head from stings)

We started with the Star. The feeder was empty and we decided to take it off, as the bees were only storing honey-ersatz in the central frames of the brood box rather than drawing out more comb.

Smoking a somewhat destitute Star

Although I had seen the queen hatch last time and marked her, there was no trace of her. And despite a 10-day-old queen and beautiful weather in the interim (giving her enough time to mate) there were no eggs or larvae in the hive. So, once again, we have to assume the queen has gone missing, mysteriously. Those pesky republican bees must be guillotining her or something!

So all our hopes were with the Moon. If they did not have a laying queen, if she was AWOL as well, then that would be the end of the hives and we would have to get new queens in. Not a palatable setback.
With some trepidation (and also because the bees have stuck everything down), Goulwenn carefully opened the Moon.

Ready to go in!

No matter what is going on in the brood chamber, the bees are busy collecting honey and two supers are almost full with honey now. It's strange: although the Moon has not had a laying queen for more than three weeks now if not longer), there are still many bees in there. I can't honestly say I've noticed any signs of depletion.

A frame almost full of honey

In the brood chamber we were relieved and delighted to see signs of a well-laying queen. We spotted eggs and larvae, most of them still in initial stages of development, as well as some capped cells. So the Moon queen has obviously managed to mate and is now laying. Phew! Despite checking all frames carefully, we could not find the queen herself. But she is in there and laying and that is all that matters!

A hive slowly returning to normal

Ecstatic that the future survival of the school bees is secured, we left them to their antics. I wonder what the next inspection will bring...

Queening gone mad

After the inspection today I felt I had gone mad or through the looking glass into some weird game of chess, where hives are constantly being re-queened. I really don't know what the bees are up to anymore (I feel like an absolute amateur again), but they are definitely not sane.
First, I looked into the Moon. The queen there has hatched - I saw the empty cell - but is not laying yet. I didn't see her during my inspection, which was fairly thorough. There aren't many drones (where would they come from?) and not all frames in the brood box have been drawn out yet, though one super is fairly heavy with honey. The bees were faintly aggressive again (I was stung four times). So for the Moon, it's sit and wait again, though somehow I'm not confident the queen will be a success.
The Star was an entirely different story. If you remember, here we had a dark queen laying well last time I looked and I had decided to feed them up, so they would draw out more comb in the brood box. Well, imagine my dismay when the edge frames were as flat and clear as before and most of the honey was stored in what used to be brood frames. What had happened here? I saw a number of queen cells and thought the bees must be getting ready to swarm. Silly me. I started removing the queen cells and as luck would have it (I must have a generous guardian bee watching over me), from one of the ones I had removed very carefully a queen emerged. I was gobsmacked, to say the least. I quickly caught her in the queen tube and put her to one side, not sure what the rest of the inspection would bring. I removed about five other queen cells, one of which had a queen almost ready to hatch, but still pale. As I went through frame after frame, it became clear that the Star had no queen any more. Where has she gone? Having done no inspection since I saw her last and today, I couldn't have squashed her. The bees have not swarmed, as numbers, I felt, were pretty much the same as last time.

Removed queen cells - one with an almost 'finished' queen

Anyway, I marked the queen, who is as yet unmated, and released her into the hive. My heart missed a beat when on landing on a brood frame a bee went up to her and looked like she was going to sting her! That would have been the last thing I needed. Luckily, the queen was not stung as I saw her later. She will hopefully mate and then all will be fine with the Star again.
Nevertheless, I am at a complete loss. Why are both colonies getting through their queens so quickly? Queens don't leave the hive (unless they want to swarm) - so what happened? I will have to do a lot of reading up over the summer to try and solve this mystery. In the meantime, I hope the bees sort themselves out, so we can return to some semblance of normality.

Moon queening

With the Star sorted as best I can, attention must now turn to the Moon and what's happening there. Last week, if you remember, I had given them eggs and expected them to rear a dozen queens or so from that.
But before I get to that, I managed to solve a somewhat sad mystery. Last inspection with Goulwenn the smoke from the smoker had suddenly started to smell rank - like long decayed beasties in the sunlight. The lovely thing is this stench has caught in my veil, so I smell it each time I put on the beesuit. Ugh! While preparing the smoker for today's Moon inspection, I saw what must be the cause for that awful smell.

The bees' own Pompeii

I don't think she's solely responsible (I probably emptied the others), but a few of these burnt alive can't smell good.

Having sorted out smoker issues, I opened up the Moon. Little had changed in the supers and there were very few frames completely sealed on both sides. The bees were very flighty and came out in strong numbers to see what the big blue thing was doing to their house. However, none stung and they seemed more curious than aggressive. I was surprised that there were still so many bees, as they have not had new brood for a few weeks now. As I had marked the frame with the eggs on it that I had put in, I did not have to look at all frames, but just work my way gently to that one.
I expected to see similar queen cell scapes that I had seen last time, but the bees seem to be more intelligent. They must know that raising more than one queen is of no use. Anyway, there was only one beautiful queen cell and a few messy attempts at something halfway between drone cell and queen cell. I removed these, just to be sure, and left only the one cell.

The queen cell, at the SE of the central brood patch.

If all goes well, a queen will hatch from that within the coming week. Should the weather hold, she will go on her mating flight and then return to the hive to start laying and rescue the colony from oblivion. Fingers crossed that this time nothing happens to the queen.
That all is not lost and miracles still can happen was proven by the fact that after the inspection the smoker was still burning and exhaling smoke as if it had only just been lit. Perhaps I am the better boy scout after all...!

Still smoking

Feed the Star

Housing the new queen with her nascent colony with friends made me think about the Star. Although this was a starting colony too, in many ways similar to the one I had transferred at the weekend, I had not fed it up, but put a super on instead, because somehow I was scared the bees might swarm. If I am to have a strong colony by the end of the season, I realized I must feed the Star. So at the weekend I made some syrup and on Monday I put Porter bee exits on the crown board (placed below the super), so that bees could exit the super, but nor enter it again. This meant the super would be isolated from the hive and bee-free.
Today I filled a feeder and placed it on the crown board, over the central hole. With ekes I gave it enough space so the super would fit on top.

A feeder full of syrup

While messing around with the super, I decided to change it with one of the new castellated ones. I can then castellate the other super and so slowly work my way through them all.

The super, now with spacer

The frames in the super have the beginnings of honey, but very few sealed cells. Hope nothing happens to them, while they are bee-less.

A royal outing

Today was one of the most exciting days of my beekeeping life and I came another small, but important step towards feeling like a real beekeeper and not just someone who messes around with bees and does the best he can while trying not to upset the bees too much.
The queen I have been rearing in the nuc (and feeding every day this week in readiness for her touch down in a new environment) was delivered to friends today and put (together with her whole court of about 1000 bees) into a beautiful, new WBC hive.
It started yesterday evening: after a short, sharp shower and approaching dusk, I sealed the entrance to the nuc. In the afternoon, I drove to the school and prepared all my gear. As I was slightly nervous, I had a list to make sure I wouldn't forget anything. After all the gear was together, I removed the feeder and the mugs and tied up the nuc so that the roof would stay on and the entrance wouldn't fall out. Imagine how much fun that would be if the entrance block came loose while driving!

The nuc trussed up, ready for transport

A few bees from the nuc escaped when I took the feeder off, so I had three or four bees following me with an unhealthy interest as I carried the nuc box to the car, which I had parked close to the apiary site. The girls became quite insistent, so I drove the car away a bit, before securing the nuc properly with further straps.

All ready for transport

At a steady 38 mph I drove the bees very carefully to their new home. There the hive was waiting for them. Before unloading the nuc, I checked the hive components and made sure everything we needed was there. Of course it was - just my nerves had to make sure. As they had just had a harrowing 25 minutes or so, being rattled about on the best of England's country lanes, I let the nuc box rest a while by the new hive.

The nuc box, still sealed, next to the bees' new home (opened)

Then it was down to business. We opened the nuc box and transferred the bees frame by frame into the new hive.

One frame in the new hive

Inspecting the third frame before it is transferred

In goes the queen.

Lots of brood on the fourth frame

 

The final frame is slotted in

Checking all is ok.

After all the frames had been transferred to the new home, I used the bee brush to swipe any bees that clung to the walls of the nuc into their new home. Then we put the crown board onto the brood box and a feeder onto that. I say feeder, but it was more like a swimming pool. The bees obviously shared my views, as several went for a swim in the syrup and we had to rescue quite a number of them. One rescued bee decided to stay on my hand until she had thoroughly cleaned herself, making it hard to fill the feeders.

Filling a sugary swimming pool

With the feeder as full as the syrup I had brought along allowed (not even half-full!), we closed up the hive and let the bees sort themselves out. It took them a while to find the proper entrance to the hive, but within ten minutes or so, they had made themselves at home and were busy flying orientation flights in the drowsy afternoon sun.
What a great way to spend a few hours! I am completely chuffed that all went so well and that my friends now have a hive of their own with a queen reared by me from hives made possible by their generosity. Full circle!

The colony in the new hive. WBCs are beautiful!

Sending eggs to the Moon

This is not some late Easter joke about the rabbit in the moon and what it does for Easter, but actually what we did today. As Goulwenn and I had our hands full with re-booting the Moon (so to speak), there aren't many photos. Here's why:
Having thought about the plight of the Moon over the weekend, it became clear to me that it did not have a queen, that the workers were starting to lay drones and that waiting any longer with re-queening them would not help anyone, least of all the bees. They might believe they are rearing new queens, but the fact that the hive was devoid of eggs except in the queen cells suggests there is no queen and these are merely misguided workers indulging in wishful thinking. Besides, the bees were getting decidedly aggressive, which was doing their reputation as honey sweet girls no good.
So, how to give them a queen? As bees can raise a queen from any egg, the solution is simple: you give them a frame with larvae and eggs on it from another hive. As the Star had been formed from the Moon, the Star now was to give back to the Moon.
This operation required that both hives be open at the same time, as we would take a frame from the centre of the Star and put it into the centre of the Moon, exchanging it for a frame from the edge of the Moon, which would go to the edge of the Star. This required a fair amount of frame shifting. I was at the Star and Goulwenn at the Moon and we exchanged frames while the bees looked on bemused. They were less aggressive than previously and, though we were stung, it was not quite so bad and afterwards the sweet bees did not follow us quite so far.

One hive open - the other to follow!

Having selected a good frame from the Star, I brushed off the bees (using a newly-purchased bee brush) and hung it to one side for later use. Meanwhile Goulwenn opened up the Moon and took out a frame from the edge and handed it to me. I inserted it into the Star before closing it. Half the operation done! Goulwenn then made space for the egg frame in the middle of the Moon and we slotted it in. We closed the Moon with a prayer that the bees would get the message and rear a queen. We shall see next week.

Finally, we had a look in the nuc. I decided to feed them, so they would draw out more comb, or have more of an energy boost, before their relocation at the weekend. The feeder I used is a contact feeder attached to a jar (it wasn't easy finding a jar that would fit the feeder, although it is sold as fitting most jars!). As this is quite high (and raises the roof substantially), I had to find other objects to hold the roof up. This is where toothbrush mugs and pen mugs came in handy.Plus they added a few interior decorating highlights to the hive, which the bees, all being female, surely appreciated!

The many uses of mugs
(the roof of the nuc goes over the mugs)

A hive is a castle

With some money to spare due to good honey and soap sales last year, I thought it would be good to add accessories to the hives (aka pimp them up). Among the items I purchased were castellated spacers. Now, having studied some history and also paid attention during several guided tours of castles, I knew the privilege to castellate a house was highly desirable in the middle-ages, because it basically meant you could add battlements to your house, making your home a castle. I wanted to do the same with the hives, though the battlements aren't really visible. In a hive you mainly add castellations to the inside of the supers to keep the frames evenly spaced (which is why they are actually called spacers). As I have had issues with sliding super frames in the past, I thought this was the perfect solution.
Regular readers will already know where this is leading - not all turns out as simple as it seems.
Although three supers are on the hives, there are still three empty ones I thought I could castellate. The problem was the spacers were longer than the inside of the super. So, using the kind of gentle persuasion only a hammer can give, I wedged the spacers into the side panels. This meant the spacers warped a bit, but I hope the nails will hold them in place until the bees propolize the spacers down for good.

Wedging battlements into the inside of a super

A super castle

Frames spaced in the castellations

Moon attacks!

Main focus of today's inspection was the Moon. Still, we checked up on the Star first, just to see whether all was fine.

Checking the honey collected in the super

First of all we leafed our way through the super, to check how much honey had been collected and whether any was ready to harvest. As the Star is essentially starting up, there was no frame that was fully capped, as was to be expected.

A pupil smoking - not normally allowed in schools!

A quick smoke and look into the brood box revealed the queen and that all is proceeding as it should in the Star. So, having satisfied ourselves that the Star at least was acting normally, we opened the Moon.

Capped comb with finished honey beneath.
If only all frames could be this way!

Here, we once again checked the supers first. The top super was not empty, but uncapped. The super below, which had been almost full last inspection, still defied the full house and too many frames had large uncapped portions for a harvest to be viable. At least, that's what I think. Maybe I'm wrong and, given it's rape, we should have spun out whatever's there. Time will tell.

The brood box was very interesting. Despite there not being a laying queen, the hive seemed very full and the colony strong. But, strangest of all, where there had been nothing the previous week, we were suddenly confronted by a mass of queen cells. What's more, the queen cells all had larvae in them. Where had these come from? A careful examination of the frames showed that there were no other eggs in the whole of the hive, only those in the queen cells. How can they be rearing queens? Well, the answer, in my opinion, is that some of the workers have started laying. Because they are unfertilized, they can only lay drone eggs. For some reason the Moon was fooling itself into thinking its workers could raise a queen from drone eggs, hence the queen cells. Sweet, but biologically impossible. But interesting to note that even bees indulge in wishful thinking.

Bees' castles in the air

Initially, not having thought the problem through properly, I thought I'd leave two queen cells and see what happens. But, on deeper reflection, I think the Moon should be given a queen as soon as possible. As the nuc queen is already accounted for, what I plan on doing is putting a frame from the Star with eggs on it into the Moon and then the Moon bees can raise a queen from one of those (they'll probably go for raising at least five, if not fifteen). That's something for the beginning of next week.
Meanwhile the Moon bees were starting to get distinctly aggressive. They were already having a bad day, what with them being queen-less and therefore doomed. Then we go and open their hive and snoop around. That can't have brightened their day and they started to show it in that inimitable way bees have.

Bees start their attack run

As quickly as possible we left the apiary, but the bees were properly upset and wanted us to know. In fact, they followed us for a good five hundred metres. And these are bees that generally are not followers!