Tag Archives: bees

Bees, Homesteading, ShepherdstownWV-1993-2017

Bees, Queens, Mites and Beetles -September 2016

My bees are having a hard time these days. There are Small Hive Beetles (SHB) attacking their space.  I installed screened bottom boards onto the bottoms of the hives because they have a slide out tray the larvae drop onto from above. Weekly I collect the cappings and pollen they have destroyed which has fallen into the tray, along with the numerous white, wiggling beetle larvae. It is disgusting and I kill them by scraping  it all into plastic shopping bags and freezing them for a few days. Some I have then sieved out, so only the pollen remains. The rest I feed to the chickens. This does not bode well for my bees.

Pollen and Small Hive Beetle Larva
Pollen and Small Hive Beetle Larva

Beetles

I have twice now, on September 8th and 25th, drenched the ground around the hives with Permithrin insecticide to kill any pupating SHB larvae in the soil. This is supposed to do the trick but I have not seen positive results yet. I still have a lot of larvae showing up on the slide out trap drawers. Supposedly, I should see a drop in populations at three weeks, which is later this week. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Top Feeders and Supers
Top Feeders and Supers

I installed honey supers on  the first five hives on July 20th but after a month, only the number two hive had drawn out any comb, so  I removed the supers and the syrup feeders from the  other four hives on August 22nd. I had been feeding them 1:1 syrup all this time so they would have the energy to excrete wax and draw new comb out on the foundations. The bees seemed really strong there for awhile and I was hoping I might even get some honey. But no. Plan B was that they would at least get the supers prepped with drawn comb so next year they would not have to work so hard.

Mites

To combat the Varroa Mites, which all beekeepers must assume we have these days, and which is most likely what killed my bees the last two winters, I have hung two Apivar miticide impregnated strips in each deep hive body (except #2 which had the super left on longer). I am seriously hoping that this will kill all the mites and enable me to overwinter my bees this year. The last two years I had only treated with HopGuard, which is considered organic, but it did not work well enough to kill all the mites, so I am using the harder stuff this year. This is what Ed Forney of Geezer Ridge uses and recommends, and since he manages to keep all his bees alive, I am following his advice  this year.

Feeding

I am still feeding pollen patties to all 6 hives, about every week to ten days, to help the bees feed their brood. The Goldenrod  and Autumn Asters are blooming now but, according to Charles, a beekeeper who moves his bees up and down the East coast following crops, the bees around here don’t utilize these plants here so much. He tells me it is an elevational thing and that up in Pennsylvania, at higher latitudes, the bees are all over the Goldenrod. I don’t see very many on the plants here in my yard, but the wasps seem to like it.

Queens

September 18th, while going through the hives and laying the pollen patties between the two hive bodies, I discovered that hive # 3 had no brood and no larvae on their frames. So, no queen. I have no idea what happened to their queen but now I need a new one. A fellow beekeeper showed me a photo of the frames in her Russian queened hive that were absolutely brimming with brood, so I bought my new queen from the same place she had. Charles lives fairly close by and raises queens himself, which means they have not been stressed by shipping at least. I borrowed a frame of capped brood from hive #1 and installed the new Russian queen (another $36)  in hive #3 on September 20th. This is the fourth queen I have had to buy this year, even though all of my hives are new this year. I had one package arrive with a dead queen, and the others have disappeared for unknown reasons.

Queen Cage
Queen Cage

Today, I will order  some more Apivar from Mann Lake, which will cost me $10.40 each double deep hive, since I am ordering a 50 strip package this time. It was about a dollar a strip more when I was buying it in 10 strip packages. Then I can remove the super and treat hive #2 for mites. I will have to treat all six hives again next spring and fall, so I can definitely use the larger amount.

Meanwhile, I attend every workshop and monthly class I am able to and I am also planning on working with another beekeeper close to me  so I can learn as much as possible about keeping bees. So far it is an uphill battle and I admire anyone who does it for fun. I am finding it a little stressful myself, as well as expensive.

-Wendy lee Maddox, writing at Edgewisewoods, Gardens and Critters

Bees, Homesteading, ShepherdstownWV-1993-2017

Swarmy Weather

Swarmy Weather

The swarm of bees that landed in our Walnut tree back in June seems happy in their new hive box, with larvae and eggs developing nicely. That is the only way I know if there is a queen laying. I have not managed to actually find a queen visually yet.

Where is the Queen?
Where is the Queen?

The other five hives have been slurping down a gallon each of sugar syrup  every two to three days. It seems I am constantly heating up big pots of syrup on the stove. It takes one pot with  a gallon and a half of water (12 pounds) and three bags of sugar, and another pot with two gallons of water and four bags of sugar, each feeding. First I heat it up to melt the sugar, then I have to wait while it cools down. I hate feeding them white sugar and would like to try Maple tree sap, or something else, instead. I have to do some research on that to see what would be healthy for them. The beekeepers I mentioned it to, did not think it a good idea. I don’t see how white sugar can be good for them. The only reason I am  feeding them this far into the season is that they are still building wax comb on the brand new foundation  and that requires a lot of carbohydrates to produce. Next year they will get an earlier start and have the foundation already built when the nectar flow comes in. They also get protein and probiotics in the form of pollen patties, to help them feed the brood.

The bees are continuing to build out their double deep hive bodies (two ten inch deep boxes with ten frames each) and until they get them all filled up I cannot add a super (shallower box for honey storage) to any of them.  A screen goes on under the honey super to prevent the queen from moving up there and laying eggs. Otherwise the frames would be all mixed up like they are in the rest of the hive- a little brood, pollen and honey on each frame.

Frame
Frame

I will have to treat the bees for mites in September, so any honey I get will have to be collected in August, when there is maybe not that much nectar available, although this link may help so I can plant more for them.  I would love to get some honey for myself this year but I may not. It kind of depends on what is available out in the surrounding fields and woods when I finally add the supers .

I have to check the hives at least once a week to be sure they still have a laying queen as evidenced by brood and larvae in the cells. Last week I found the number two hive with no larvae and very little brood left. This made me think that the swarm I caught might have come from this hive. They absconded with the queen without leaving me one behind.  I called Eversweet Apiary, which is only about seven miles from my house, to see if they had a new Carniolian Queen available, so I install a new one.  Heading out the drive the next morning, I glanced over at the bee yard and saw that the number two hive was now covered with bees on two outside walls. This was different than the bees  “just cooling off on the front porch”, as Ed Forney of Geezer Ridge likes to say, when they congregate on the walls above the entrance to cool off. These were covering the back and side of the hive. They were dripping off the bottom and not flying through the air, but huddled as if in a flat-ish swarm, or maybe about to take off. Not again!

Bees Plastered to the Back Wall
Bees Plastered to the Back Wall

I hurried out to Eversweet to get the new queen, hoping the bees would stick around long enough for me to introduce her to them. When I asked the guy there what he would do, he said, “All you can do is try. Put her in there and see if her pheronomes will lure them back in. ”

As soon as I got back, I suited up and wedged the queen cage in between two frames. Then I removed the entrance reducer and canted the top feeder box off to the side to give the bees an easier way to get back inside and check her out.

Canted Top Box
Canted Top Box

I looked out there every hour or so all day  and they seemed to be moving back in. By nightfall, they were all inside and I straightened up the box again.

Bees Cooling on the Front Porch
Bees Cooling on the Front Porch

The queen comes in a tiny cage that has a sugar plug in one end that the bees have to eat through to release her.

Queen Cage
Queen Cage

It takes the bees a couple of days to eat through and allows just enough time for them to get used to her smell. There is always the chance that they will not accept her but when I checked two days later they seemed to be feeding her through the wire mesh, not trying to sting her, which was a good sign. There was a bee in the tube and almost though the sugar plug so she she should be released by now. I am going out to check…and there is a bee meeting tonight l that I will need to  attend. There is so much to learn.

-Wendy lee, writing at Edgewisewoods, Gardens and Critters

 

Bees, Homesteading, ShepherdstownWV-1993-2017

Five Hives Now

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May 31, 2016- Five Hives Now

Last night at dark thirty I went to Geezer Ridge over on Back Creek and picked up my two Carnie Nucs, aka: Carniolian queen, 5 frame nucleus hives. I drove my pickup out through Martinsburg on Dry Run Road, over North Mountain and right into a rainstorm covering the valley on the west side.

I backed up to Ed’s garage and he quickly located my boxes, sealed their entrance with duct tape and put them in the back of the pickup. I wedged the boxes between two boards and a couple of sandbags and then strapped them in so they wouldn’t slide forward if I had to brake hard. Now for the hour drive back home.

The rain stopped just as I crested the ridge heading back east. Looking in my rear view mirror, I saw the sun as a giant, blood orange orb, setting under the layer of dark storm clouds. Ahead of me was mostly clear.

When I got home to the bee yard I aimed the headlights at my hive stand as it was starting to get dark. I wanted to install them in their more spacious homes right away. The bees were buzzing fairly loudly in their temporary boxes so I figured I had better get the smoker stoked up. I had been hoping to not use it, but they sounded like they needed to be calmed.

Cardboard Nucs
Cardboard Nucs

I remembered Ed used a torch to get his smokers going and since I have been having trouble getting mine lit properly, it seemed the way to go. I located the propane torch in the garage and fired up the smoker with broken up pieces of locust tree bark. The torch got things cooking much better than the paper and matches I had been using.

I puffed the smoker occasionally, to keep it going as I made my way back to the bee yard, then twisted up some dried grass and added it over the embers. I puffed a little smoke into each screen vent on the nuc boxes, then opened up the two waiting hives removing a couple of frames from each to allow for more room to maneuver. Opening the hinged cardboard lid, I puffed some more smoke in to keep the bees on the frames, lifting and moving each frame over to their new box in their original sequence. Then I added the two empty frames back in, snugged them all together and placed the hive top feeders on. I poured a gallon and a half of sugar syrup in and put the top lid back on.

“There you go babies. Enjoy your new home.”

It was full dark as I loaded the empty nuc boxes and syrup jugs, along with the smoker, into the back of the truck. I shut off the lights and walked back to the garage to take off my bee jacket and veil, shooing off strays as I went.

Inside Empty Cardboard Nuc Box
Inside Empty Cardboard Nuc Box

Earlier in the day, I checked my other three hives and found various stages of brood in all of them, which was good.

Brood Frame with Drones
Brood Frame with Drones

The #1 and #2 package bees had not filled out all their frames yet but the nuc in # 3 was almost there so I added another deep hive box on top and moved two center brood frames up into it to get them started. I topped off all the syrup feeders and they still had some pollen patties left.

Open Hive with Pollen Pattie
Open Hive with Pollen Pattie

So now I have all five of my bee hives filled and can hopefully keep them happy and healthy and eventually get paid back in honey.

Five Hives Filled
Five Hives Filled

-Wendy lee, writing at Edgewise woods, gardens and critters

 

Bees, Homesteading, ShepherdstownWV-1993-2017

Farming and Bees

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Farming and Bees

While contemplating my honeybees this morning, I could not help but worry about them and what would happen to them with all the corn and soybean planting happening around me. Farming and bees do not fit as well together these days as they used to. My two package bee queens have finally started laying eggs (they had me worried) and the nurse bees are now actively feeding larvae. The nuc I just picked up and installed the other day is looking fine,  but all around me are fields of soybeans and corn that make me nervous. I know they spray Round Up right before, or even as they plant, to kill the wintered over weeds. Some of the weeds are in bloom and the bees could be on them and be sprayed as well. They will spray Round Up (glyphosate) again later when weeds start getting taller than the crop.  I got to thinking about neo-nicotinoids and whether or not the seed the local farmer uses is treated with it. He said he doesn’t usually spray insecticides, but if it is on the seeds, it does not count as spraying. It doesn’t even count as an insecticide application when studies are done, which is a technicality that needs to be fixed. I figured I would go to the feed store and ask them what kind of seed I could get to plant fields of corn and soybeans, and see what they recommended.

The Feed Store

So, I made a run into town for feed, gas and groceries. I made a list of what I needed at Southern States-

1.) Information and prices on Corn and Soybean seeds

2.) 10 more 6 foot metal T-posts to repair the fence in the back paddock

3.) Two bags of chicken feed, one bag of horse feed, and some birdseed as a treat for the bitties

I usually buy my feed from Southern States because their feed is a better quality than Tractor Supply, and is not crawling with insects. The Feed Bin over near Boonesboro has even better feed, really fresh, but she can be grumpy so I tend to avoid it.

I loaded up two gas cans to be filled at the Liberty station in Charlestown, where they sell gas without ethanol because, according to my repairman, using the normal gas with ethanol is why I have had such issues with my chainsaw, weed eater and lawnmower.  I also loaded up the propane tank for the grill, to be filled at the Tractor Supply store, where it is the cheapest.

As I was driving down Trough Road I saw a shiny blue, very large, tractor, with a spray rig all folded up, coming my direction, so I pulled off to the side for him to get by. He needed to turn to the field right where I had pulled off, it turned out, so I squeezed by him as he moved carefully around me. We waved at each other and went on. Then I thought,

“That was a missed opportunity to talk to a guy who knows what he’s doing.”

So I turned back around to see if maybe I could catch him outside of the tractor cab while he was setting up. Nope. He was doing all the setup and unfolding and everything from inside the cab, all hydraulically operated with switches. Darn. So I headed back towards town again. I didn’t want to get in the guys way, especially after all the wet weather we have had limiting the farm work lately.

When I got to the Sothern States it was a madhouse. It was bad enough that it was Saturday morning, but it was also the first morning without rain for two weeks. The whole back lot was covered with seed chutes loading trucks and trailers. All the seed I saw dropping into the trucks looked treated to me, with that pink fungicide color. In this weather, the seed would probably rot without it. I have had to replant my peas that weren’t treated, with all this wet weather.  Of course, my peas only take up about 15 feet of row, not like it is a major loss.  Inside, there were only some folks manning the registers, nobody from the offices was available. I went back there and found a couple of brochures on soybean varieties and management methods for wheat and corn, but I did not see a price list. Apparently, farmers work directly with someone in the office, to determine what their needs are, depending on crop history, the current weather situation, and the expected disease issues each season. All of them were busy elsewhere, so I brought the brochures home to read them.

Out of 30 varieties of soybeans available at Sothern States, only 2 were listed as conventional, which I think means, not genetically modified to allow for herbicide resistance. On this list 22 were engineered to be Round Up resistant and 6 were engineered for an alternate herbicide called Liberty Link. There are many different companies producing glyphosate herbicides and many other brands of seeds. The main thing is that conventional farmers choose their seeds and treatments according to cost and availability, and what they know will work for them. It is not going to be easy to change any of that and you can’t blame them when their choices are so limited. I read earlier today that sometimes there is even a money back guarantee if you buy the newest products they are pushing, with all the bells and whistles, and you get nothing if you buy the old conventional standbys.

After reading the brochures, it looks like Southern States custom mixes seed and adds whatever seed treatments you ask for. Acceleron is one of the treatments they list, which has an imadacloprid (neonicotinoid) systemic insecticide as one of its ingredients, which is supposed to limit insects only during early growth stages, or about 30 days.  There are fungicides in this product as well. The issue with bees is that during planting, the insecticide can become airborne in dust and coat any bees flying nearby. They carry it back to the hive and it gets mixed in with their pollen, wax and honey stores and contaminates the entire hive and the larvae get it fed to them.  Neonicotinoids are currently being researched for being a possible cause of colony collapse disorder because it may cause bees to become disoriented. It may also cause them to change their behavior so that they become precocious foragers, limiting their time as nurse bees. These growth timing changes can affect the whole colony’s life cycle. Maybe, if this insecticide is really needed (and it may not be) it could be planted as a wet mix to at least alleviate the drift concern.

I cannot imagine being a farmer these days. Just reading the pesticide information does me in, let alone the attributes of various seeds and their genetic changes.  Farmers have to be knowledgeable about so many different realms of plant science, have weather and luck on their side, and then be ready to put in really long hours to get their planting and harvesting done, during the right window of opportunity. There are no guarantees and way too many variables. You have to be an eternally optimistic person to pull it off. I have enough trouble with my chickens, gardens, horse and bees. I hope we can all find a way to save the bees, without making farming any more difficult.