Destroyed hive

If yesterday morning's beginning was any indication of how the rest of the day would unfold, I should have just cried "uncle" and crawled back into bed.

I've been worried about bears and my bees for a long time.  Funny thing is, neither of us can remember if the local bear has gotten into my hive before yesterday or not.  But sure as the day is long, the bear had managed to get into our yard and into my hive early yesterday morning. Everything was askew and on the ground.  Bees were buzzing about dazed and most of the comb was destroyed.  I'll be lucky if the queen survived any of this.

After having experienced my first disappointment earlier this spring when I thought the hive had collapsed during the winter, the devastation yesterday was heartwrenching.

Just now Jamie said that he sees some bees buzzing around the hive - we had put it all back together yesterday morning.  These bees will truly be my heroes if they can come back from prolonged negative winter temperatures and the destruction of a bear.

dead bees 

I have to do some research on this, not exactly sure what it is.

possible bear claw marks

The nerve of some Princesses

My bees decided their digs were not accommodating enough, so they have swarmed, right onto the top of a tree by my back porch.  That's enough to make a girl purse her lips and expel air rapidly.  I mean, if they're going to go, GO.  Don't taunt me by hanging around my yard.

It started with a whole lot of activity around the hive this morning.  If there is high activity of the buzzing kind in front of the hive, it can be what is known as Orientation Flight.  The new bees need to know where they are and how to get back to their hive after a foraging trip.

This was not Orientation Flights.  This was buzzing all around the front and sides and back of the hive with bees milling about on the "flight deck" of the hive. 

 

 

 

Time to break out my gear.

 

 

I lifted this super off once I'd loosened the corners, and gasped when I found queen cells (yay) with exposed and immature Queens (oh damn). 

 

photo courtesy of Wikipedia 

 

My greatest fear is squishing a Queen.  Followed closely by taking off a super and tearing apart their wax cells, exposing them and more than likely ending their quest for Queendom.  I just put the hive in grave danger.  My hope is that my little Princesses are rearing more Queens, more than the 5 or so white larvae I saw..  As it stands, there is no mobile Queen in my hive, she's still incubating.  The hive creates several Queen Cups before the current Queen and up to 60% of the population of my hive goes off to find other accomodations.  Once the swarm leaves, the hive is Queenless until the virgin Queen is born and mated. 

While inside my hive, I put on a super with mostly drawn out comb so that I can try to harvest something for myself this year.  My hope is that the bees continue to draw out this comb and use it for additional honey storage!

 

Still hanging in there

My bees are out today, with temperatures in the 60's this doesn't surprise me.  What surprised me - the last baggie of sugar water I put on the hive for feeding had some left inside it.  Apparently the bees didn't need it all.  That's a good thing.

With weird weather, and having a track record of losing hives, I opted to put another baggie of 2:1 on the hive just now.  I want to make darn sure that they don't starve this year.  Tomorrow's temps should be near 70 (seriously, it's winter people).  And it may be raining.  So if the bees are stuck inside the hive, they can focus on storing the sugar water I've introduced today.

Keep crossing your fingers for me.  I can't bear to lose another hive.

Oh Great

It's been such a warm winter that my bees have made their way through their winter stores and are at the top of the hive.  Not good.

I managed to get outside today and fed the little darlings.  But, even so, there is a chance this hive will go the way that all of my previous hives have gone.

I have to make sure to get some fondant made.  And any day that's remotely close to 53 degrees needs to be a feeding day.

I won't go so far as to say I've failed with my beekeeping hobby.  But I'm pretty close.

Stay tuned?

Hive Check : crushed hard candy and green pollen

I have not actually checked the entire hive.  I really, really dislike disrupting my bees - especially in the winter. 

But, I have been monitoring them throughout this mild winter.  Although they have remained in the top super they have seemed to do fairly well, and their numbers are higher than I thought they would be.

I have fed 2:1 sugar on every warm day and last week my husband wanted to try crushing some hard candy and putting it on the top of the top super.  He'll be staying home from work tomorrow so I'll have him lift the inner cover to check on them.

Something we have been very pleased to see this winter are bees with full pollen baskets flying into the hive.  I had no idea that there would be any pollen available in the winter.  Another interesting observation, the pollen has had a green hue to it.

I'm getting bait hives ready for this spring.  I'm not going to miss capturing swarms this year.  And I don't think I want to repeat of this.

With temperatures supposedly going to be in the 60's this coming week I'm guessing the bees will be busy.  I can't wait for this season, maybe we'll actually be able to harvest some honey.

Doomed

The winter cluster has been in the top of three boxes.  At the tippy top.  This causes me a great deal of concern and I'm afraid I'm going to lose this hive. 

Whenever the temps are warm enough to warrant flight, and/or activity, I've been feeding 2:1 syrup.  I believe that sometime in the upcoming week the temps are supposed to be in the mid 50's  again so most likely I'll prepare some more.  But just enough that they can take it in one day.

I really don't want to give up on beekeeping and I am crossing my fingers not only that this hive survives but that I get an easy year.  One can only hope.

Waxmoth Invasion

Last year I struggled with small hive beetles. This year it's waxmoths.

Everything had been going just fine, I was feeding my bees, I had medicated the syrup, I had fumigated for mites.  Every time I'd checked things had appeared healthy.  And today when I went into one of the hives I saw complete chaos.  My hive had turned into breeding grounds for waxmoth larvae. 

Waxmoth webs

They tunnel through the comb and defecate, essentially destroying it.  They had spun their coccoons in the comb, around the comb, on the comb and in small crevices between frames.

Bees can generally clean up the comb but the frames have to be frozen to kill the larvae.  That meant I had to freeze 16 of the frames that may have potential re-use value.  The remaining 8 will just sit in a plastic bag through the winter. 

What does all this mean?   I had to dismantle the entire hive.  And I hope that since it's queenless (there was no brood of any kind) that they will assimilate into the other hive because they won't have queen pheromone on them.  I'm crossing my fingers here, there were a lot of homeless bees. 

newly homeless bees, about 1/3 of what was in the dismantled hive