Brushy Mountain's "Back to Basics" April

Back to the Basics

You have set up your hives and installed your bees with the queen cage attached to a frame. We know that you are eager to check on them to see how they are doing but disrupting the colony will hinder them. Give them time to acclimate to the new queen and release her on their own (will typically take 5 to 7 days). Once you have given them time to release the queen on their own, you can open up your hive and see your bees hard at work!

When you first open your hive to remove the queen cage, you may notice no substantial changes. Your bees are working frantically to draw out comb, giving space for your queen to lay her eggs and room to store their nectar. There will be some foraging bees sent out to bring in nectar and pollen but the majority of the force will be building up the frames. Providing feed during this time is vital. As the bees work the frames, they will be consuming feed almost as fast as you are providing it for them. Ensure they have the feed they need!
Other things to be aware of:

• Don’t be frightened to find that your colony seems smaller then when you installed it. This is a new colony and it will take them time before they will grow in population. The population will begin to decrease before it starts increasing because the newly laid eggs must be raised out to replace the older bees.
• As the bees begin to work the frames, drawing out foundation, they may draw out a queen cup. There is no reason to fret. A queen cup does not mean your hive is queen-less, but is a precautionary measure your worker bees take to ensure they can raise a new queen quickly if something were to happen with the current queen. A queen cup is a single cup which is located in the middle of the frame, and will not have an or larva inside.
• When you begin working your hive, your first instincts are to look for the queen. The queen is one of thousands of bees throughout the hive. Although she is much larger than the worker bee, she will be extremely hard if not impossible to find. An alternative is to check the frames for eggs. Eggs signify that the queen has been released and is laying. Eggs are also difficult to see (less difficult than finding the queen) but they appear as small white kernels that are similar to rice.

Installing your package is just one of the first steps into this exciting hobby. Once your queen has been released and starts laying eggs, you will begin to see a large field force in your garden, buzzing from flower to flower.
Here are some helpful hints to help you in these beginning months:

• Even though you see that your bees are bringing in nectar and pollen, feed still needs to be provided for the colony. They are still trying to build their honey stores and if there are days when it is rainy, your bees will need that feed. However, you should remove the feeder once you add the first honey super. We want to harvest honey, not sugar water!
• A great looking brood frame will have a central section of brood in different stages. You should find eggs, larvae and capped brood. If you find that your brood frames are spotty (small patches of brood with many empty cells around the brood patches) you could have an under-productive queen. This can happen with a newly installed package, as the queen gets settled into her new environment. If the problem persists, she may need to be replaced.
• Once you find that your outer frames are being worked and comb is beginning to be drawn out on them, it is time to add on the next brood chamber. The rule of thumb is that if 6 to 7 of your frames are drawn out, add the next super. Adding the next story will give your queen the space she needs to lay and can alleviate congestion in the hive.

With the first steps behind you, you will begin to see the true joy of beekeeping. Keep feeding your bees and let them build up in population.  

ORIGINAL SOURCE:  BRUSHY MOUNTAIN 

Brushy Mountain's Question of the Month: April...

Question of the Month

Your hives have made it through winter and are now busting at the seams with bees. Do you continue to add hive bodies and build up your hive? Can you create a split? Should you worry about swarming?

An overwintered hive will begin brood production before winter comes to an end. By the time spring gets here, they will be high in population and ready for the nectar flow. This can lead to the possibility of swarming and requires attention from the beekeeper.
You have two options to help prevent overcrowding in the hive:

• You may continue to build up your hive by adding on the next story. This is an easy option and will build up your hive fast. If the queen is not in the bottom brood chamber, reverse the brood chambers and place honey supers above the brood chambers. Reduce the congestion by giving your bees room to move up into the hive and space for your queen to lay. You still must be cautious of swarm cells and dealing with a honey bound hive.
• Create a split. A split in its simplest form, is the transfer of several frames with mixed brood and frames capped with honey from your mother hive into a new hive. You would replace the transferred frames with empty frames, giving your mother hive space to continue growing. Splitting a colony gives you another hive with a more bees to help pollinate your garden and harvest honey.

Creating a split seems simple, but there are different variations (below is just one example how to create a split) and challenges involved. This is however, a great and convenient way to establish a new colony in your bee yard.

When making a split, you will want to have your equipment setup and ready for the transfer of frames. It is best to grab 4 or 5 frames of mixed brood in various stages of development. This will keep the population going as new bees are hatched and as larvae continues to develop. The hive's survival will be dependent upon the newly hatched bees and developing larvae. Frames of nectar and pollen will be essential in feeding the colony until they are able to increase in population.

When transferring the frames into the split, you do not want to brush off the nurse bees. The nurse bees will be beneficial to help feed and raise out the brood. The bees that are transferred from your mother hive are orientated to the mother hive. Once they fly from the split, they will return to the mother hive. You will want to transfer a good number of nurse bees over to the split because the majority of them will return to the mother hive. This may require you to shake a few extra frames of bees into the split. The bees that hatch out will become orientated to the split colony and will replace the nurse bees that returned to the mother hive.

Right now your split is queenless. You have the option of purchasing a fertilized queen (before you create the split) and introducing her to your split colony. It will take 5 to 7 days before your colony will become acclimated to her, but once she is released, she will begin laying. If you know that you transferred over frames of brood with eggs that are less than 3 days old, your split hive will realize that it is queenless and will begin to raise out their own queen from the fertilized eggs. There are numerous risks in allowing a colony to raise out their own queen.Dangers in raising out a new queen: low drone population, rainy weather, birds, car windshields, ect. Aside from these threats, it can take 2 to 3 weeks before the queen is able to begin laying (if she is properly fertilized). 

After transferring your frames and ensuring your split is queen right, they will continue to grow. The split is a new colony and should be treated as such. Add a feeder to the split and give them time to grow before checking on them. Your mother hive will need to be monitored to ensure it does not become overcrowded. Some beekeepers can create multiple splits from one hive, depending upon the strength of that colony. 

ORIGINAL SOURCE:  BRUSHY MOUNTAIN

Bee School Session 3...

Hampden County Beekeepers Bee School February 2013

When: Thursday, February 7th at 7pm

Where:  Willimanset Heights Improvement League (WHIL)

118 Mount Vernon Rd.

Chicopee, MA 01013

This will be our third session of bee school for 2013.

HCBA Member Tom Flebotte will cover sources of bees and hive installation.       

All members are welcome to attend. 

Our last bee-school break was a huge success thanks to everyone who brought something!  Those who would like to are again invited to bring a snack to share. 

Bee-ing a Member of HCBA Has Many Benefits...

I just received this email from HCBA new member Laura Martin. Laura's email is a great example of how the support of a club can be so helpful to beekeepers seasoned and new! Plus, her excitement about her new bees is contagious! As you read, you can remember how exciting it was the first time YOU saw eggs and larvae! I know all beekeepers can relate to that, regardless of your experience level. Thanks to Laura for letting me share, and to Sue Goddard for setting such a good example for the HCBA!

And now here's Laura's email...
I'm so excited! ....I have eggs! .....I have larvae! ....I even have some developing prepupa!

A big, Thank You!, to Sue Godard who kindly visited my hive with me and viewed the frames for signs of laying. She showed me how to tilt the frame, just so, in order to see those tiny, tiny, little white "sticks" that are the bee eggs. I had brought a magnifying glass with me, just in case, but I didn't end up needing it.

Sue also gave me some helpful tips: I need to get my hive up higher off the ground than it currently is (it's on top of two very large white 5" thick bricks). She said it should ideally be about 18" off the ground. So, today, I'm off to look for something that will accomplish this.

She also pointed out that, for rain, the top should be slid all the way toward the front of the hive (where the bee opening is) so the rain won't get in through the bee door.

She helped me to cut off the excess comb that the bees were building out from the frames and explained that keeping the frames tightly together will help keep the bees from this excess building. She told me to keep the wax for candle making later. In a little bit of the trimmed comb there was some uncured honey - extremely pale in color and made from sugar water but still yummy and honey-tasting! I did not expect this. It was very little; probably around 1/8 of a teaspoon in total.

I asked her some questions regarding beekeeping - various little things that have cropped up since starting this new hobby. She was very knowledgeable and interesting to listen to.
I think this is one of the best things in having a bee mentor to help out first-timers like myself - there always seems to be new questions I have and it's equally helpful to have someone there to show me how to apply the information we've learned in bee school to the practical, real-life experiences of beekeeping. We learn by doing.
I'm so grateful to Sue for her help and assistance!

Laura Martin

Tom's Follow Up for Your New Bee Packages...

hi all
hope everyone's install went well......now feed feed feed ...don't bother them until sometime this afternoon or Tuesday open up ,check the queen cage to see if she is out ...if she is take it out push the frames together and get out .....leave them until next week then check for eggs ....by then they should have some comb drawn and the queen should bee laying eggs.........don't bother them too much inspect them once a week ...to make sure she is laying ..if you see eggs you know she is there........ you do not have to see the queen to know she is there...watch at the entrance, if the bees are bringing in pollen..that is a good sign she is laying .........once you see capped brood it should bee flat not protruding like a bullet ..though there might bee some protruding capping's around the corners and bottom ...these are the drones...again keep feeding them sugar syrup 2 parts sugar to 1 part warm water...they need this to draw out the comb...

Mine are all in and going to town... Those Russians, they like the vodka...Special thanks to my two copilots, John and Fred...

any questions or problems call or email me ....413-883-9399
thanks, tom

New Member Install Reports...

We had a few emails and blog comments come in from some of our new bee school students who did their first hive installations this passed Saturday. I'd like to share a few...

A QUEEN CAGE MISHAP...
A great big thank you to Tom for his long hual bee trucking to GA! Hope he gets a good nights sleep tonight! My installation was certainly not textbook, but a step or two above the 3 Stooges! I am banking on what Ken said about bees being very resilient! Did anyone else push the cork into the queen cage besides me?!? I am hoping the worker bees can get her out and/or that I have not damaged her....if she appears OK tomorrow I think I am going to have to manually release her from the cage..wish me luck!
~Jen Cushman

ALL WENT WELL FOR LAURA...
Hello Fellow Beekeepers,

Big thank you to Tom for journeying down to Georgia and bringing back all those packages of bees for those us who ordered bees from him! Great job!

It was a very exciting day - now that I've successfully installed my first package of bees into my first hive, I feel like I'm now an Official Beekeeper.
Everything went pretty smoothly, despite my nervousness. The knowledge that there were 10,000 bees in that box (Tom had told me this when I picked up my bees from him), was at the forefront of my mind the whole time.
I too had a little trouble getting the cork out of the Queens's cage and I ended up (very, very carefully!) using a small nail to "scoop" out pieces of the cork until all that was left was the candy plug. Into this candy plug I (once again, very carefully!) put a hole through to the Queen's side of the cage. Then I hung the cage between two frames, just like I'd seen in the last 10 or more YouTube videos that I've been watching for the past few days.

The "Big Moment", that moment when things get REAL and there you are; a box full of 10,000 bees, open and buzzing like mad, arrived and I smoked them once more, took a deep breath and dumped them into the hive! What an exhilarating experience! I couldn't believe I'd actually done it!

There were some stragglers left in the bee-box so, after I fed my bees and put the tops back on, I placed the almost-empty bee-box near the opening of the hive in the hope that they'd find their way into the hive on their own, perhaps being drawn in by the scent of syrup or of the Queen inside.

My daughter videotaped the whole thing. I wanted to have something to remember this special day.

On the way home, we spotted a large black bear roaming around the neighborhood - how funny to have just installed bees and then right after see a bear not 1 mile away. This reminded me that I now have to get going on figuring out how to install a solar-powered electric fence around my hive.

Hope everyone who installed bees for the first time today had a good experience too!

~Laura Martin

A SPILL AND NO STINGS...
Many, many thanks to Tom for making the trip. I hope you all had successful installations!

I had trouble getting one of the queen cage plugs out (I had two packages and this was the first one). I went back to the house twice in search of a tool to assist with the challenge. In the end, a seam ripper worked the best. The seam ripper (standard tool in most sewing boxes) just plucked the second one out in an instant. My other surprise is that the queens were no where near the size I had imagined they would bee. Also, despite knocking over one of my hive top feeders, including all the 1-1 syrup that was in it, I somehow managed to not even get stung once!

Again, great thanks and appreciation to Tom for the transportation and thanks to the the club for all the guidance. This has been a very exciting day!!

Roxie

I'd like to thank our newest beekeepers for sharing their experiences here. Does anyone else have an install story to share? Please feel free to share it in the comments section below, or email it to me, and I'll be happy to post it here on our blog. Does anyone have photos to share? Email them in!

Installation and Feeding Videos for our Newbees...

Thanks to new member Laura Martin for sending links to these videos to share with our new bee school class. A lot of you have your first bees arriving Saturday, so the information in these videos should be a helpful reminder of all the things you'll have to do!

I hope everyone in the HCBA that will be installing new bees this weekend has a great experience doing it. Congratulations to our newest members who will be doing this for the first time. Remember, you're not officially a beekeeper until you've had your first sting! I'm kidding of course, but there is something about that first sting that sort of seals the deal.

Enjoy!