Building A Better Beetle Trap

I truly hope that someone smarter than me is working on eradicating the Small Hive Beetles.

"Build a better mouse trap and the world will beat a path to your door." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

However, until then, this is my latest attempt. I bought Catchmaster Home Pest Traps (glue traps for insects) 12 pack for $4.97. I then cut those glue traps in half, longways.

Then I made cage around it with #8 hardware cloth and placed a cue-tip inside. I used a syringe to put apple cider vinegar on the cue-tips for beetle bait (BTW it got in my eye and it burned like hell).

I only had time to make 9 Sticky Traps, so I put them in the 9 weakest hives - that being said, all of my hives seem very strong.

It should rain for the next week, so I'll check on the traps after that.

Other Hive Notes:

It was a very hot day (95F) . To be honest, at 400lbs, I was a little worried about the heat but I made it a point to take it slow. Much to my delight, I never got overheated and I was able to check all 20 hives and place a Swiffer Sheet in each one.

A word on my bee jacket: I bought a Ventilated Bee Jacket from Bushy Mountain. I've had 4 other cotton jackets and suits and I got stung through them all! However, this jacket is like Kevlar for bees. I got a little rough with one of my hives and the bees went nuts... but not one of them stung me through my jacket.

I pulled 24 frames of honey from 4 different supers. I found that using a bee brush to remove the bees from each frame works really well. It's not much of a solution for large harvests but while I am just pulling 15 or 20 supers, it works great.

Also, by pulling one frame at a time, I was able to spot the brood and leave it behind - as well as the uncapped frames.

I'm now up to 35 gallons of honey. I plan to reinvest all of the money into building more hives.

I also finally got out to the Old Farm. That one hive is still alive. It was dry out there that day but it is usually very wet (ankle deep). So I think I'll just bring it to my house this winter and never go back to the Old Farm after that.

Final Hive Count: 20-Hives & 1-Five Frame Nuc

My Cup Runs Over

My bees are flourishing like never before. 20 of the 22 hives at Dr. D's place are packed with bees and honey. Two needed some help but still had bees in them.

I am also happy to say, that I didn't see a single beetle yesterday - not that I looked too hard for them. The heat index was well over a 100 degrees and 1.5 hours was enough to exhaust me completely. Noah is younger and fared better than me but he still looked spent by the end.

We added 11 supers to the hives that needed more room but we needed 13. I'll have to make two more boxes this weekend and wax 20 more frames.

By the way, I bought 13 pounds of wax to coat my old plastic frames. 1 pound of wax is enough to paint 10 plastic frames.

I still have lots of old plastic frames but I have used all but a couple of my old supers. So from here on out, if I want to expand anymore, I'll have to build more equipment.

Nonetheless, my bees are doing exceptionally well, as are all the aspects of my life. I have just kept my head down and pecked away at the work and God has done the rest.

"Indeed, don’t try to get there at all. It’ll happen when you’re not looking for it." - The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.

Nothing in life is promised. Yet, I feel optimistic about the future in a very real way. My cup runs over.

Hive Count: 23 Hives

p.s. The moist black wax in the hive I mentioned in the last blog is gone and that hive looks perfectly healthy. Whatever it was has self-corrected.

The Mating Sign?

Let me start this blog with a question: What does the "Mating Sign" look like?

All 22 hives at Dr. D's have bees in them. It has been two weeks since I made my last hive splits. There are lot of good reasons why I was too busy to get out to the apiary sooner but none of them make me feel less guilty or get me any closer to my goals.

I spent Monday and Tuesday night waxing 110 plastic frames. I used up almost all of my wax reserves in the process. So on Wednesday, Noah and I took 11 supers to Dr. D's.

Only one hive looked like it had a beard and it was the one I suspected would (see pic).

This is the beard 3min after smoke

Most of the hives looked strong, though several did not have any brood (but they did have empty queen cells). After all this time, I can speculate what had happened but I can't be sure. In one of these hives I found the queen who had two tiny white specs at the end of her tail. I think this might have been "The Mating Sign". I couldn't find any good pictures with Google so I'm not sure.

I don't believe my hives have swarmed, simply because there were still empty frames in each hive. It could simply be that the hives are growing slower than I expected.

Nonetheless, in every hive that lacked brood, we placed a new frame of eggs. If the hive needs a queen, then the bees can convert a young larva. If the queen is there, then the added brood will strengthen the hive.

Since there were 22 hives and I only had enough freshly waxed frames for 11 supers, we divided the frames among the hives where needed. We inspected the first 15 hives closely, however the sun was going down so we simply opened the last 7 and added a super to each (all seven looked healthy but we didn't search for brood.)

We accomplished all of this in just 1.5 hours. At this rate, it would only take us 8 hours to inspect 100 hives. I also tried out my new bee jacket for Bush Mountain Bees and it worked great - no stings. (You can see how big it is in the picture - I'm fat but that's not all me in that jacket). Of course Noah was wearing an old cotton jacket and didn't get stung either, so the bees might have just been in a good mood.

Final Hive Count: 23 Hives

"A bee is never as busy as it seems; it's just that it can't buzz any slower." Kin Hubbard

Queen Cells: If at first you don't succeed.

"In our response lies our growth and our freedom," Victor Frankl

Yesterday's hive inspections couldn't have been worse (well anything can get worse but it was bad).  The sky was sunny but the temperature was a cool 56F degrees with winds around 20mph. The weekend will been even colder and with lots of rain, so it was now or never.

As one can imagine, the bees were quite cantankerous, to say the least. In fact, they were down right pissed. Given that it was so cool, I put my Carheart jacket on, thinking it would be a fine bee coat given its elastic waist and cuffs. I was wrong!

The bees seemed to know right where to attack. They actively targeted my wrist and waist in droves. I could actually feel them rolling my sleeves back and I am fairly certain I heard battle cries and a little laughter.

Well, I knew they would be that way, given the weather and the fact they were queenless, so I should have worn a full suit. Oh well.



Only one of the three Queen Cells I placed Saturday seemed to have made it - and even that one is questionable. I had cut the three cells from a plastic frame and in doing so, I had opened the back of the cells and not left enough surrounding wax to attach the cell to the new frame.

Two of the cells were just gone. The third cell was laying in the bottom of Hive-E and the bees had secured it to the bottom board.

The solution was to leave Hive-E as it was and see if the queen emerges. Hive-E had a lot of bees and honey, so if this doesn't work, then I will just place more eggs in it in a week or so.

In Hive-D, we placed a new frame of eggs from Hive-L (Hive-L is the smallest hive and therefore, the easiest to find eggs).

Hive-A got a Queen Cell from Hive-G. This was a very good cell since it came from a wood frame and I could cut a big chunk of extra wax to help secure the cell in the new frame. Though I mashed a lot of worker larva - ick!

Now the bees will be given a week to do what they do. We'll see what happens. Nonetheless, all the hives are packed with bees and doing well.

First Split of 2018 & Big Bryan's Beetle Box

"Necessity if the mother of invention." - Plato

I am an inventor at heart and given my beetle problems last year, I have been trying to build a better mousetrap (beetle trap). Beetle Busters are great but they can get expensive. Fat Bee Man's political sign traps seem reasonable but I still have beetles when I use them. Of course dryer sheets work really well but they seem to kill one bee for every two beetles.

So here is my latest invention. Big Bryan's Beetle Box.

It is a simple and cheap beetle solution. It's a 3/8" thick #8 hardware cloth box with a dryer sheet inside. This way the beetles can get to the dyer sheet but the bees can't.

I put my first prototypes in the hives yesterday. There were not a lot beetles since all of my hives are so strong but there were still a few. I placed 7 traps in seven hives - 3 of them I poured Apple Cider Vinegar on. I'll let you know how they work next week.


"He also divided the two fish among them all." - Mark 6:41 

I split (divided) the six hives at Dr. D's place into twelve. Of course this isn't the first time I made splits but this is the first time I did it with complete confidence.

If you've been following my blog, then you know that last year I made a lot of splits that ultimately failed. But in the words of Thomas Edison, "I haven't failed. I just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

So here is what we did yesterday.

First, we cleaned the apiary up and leveled our concrete blocks.

The next step was to decide on the location of each split. We did our best to put the split as far from the original location as possible - though this is really not that important since the nurse bees will stay with the move and all the workers will go back to the original location.

With the locations decided we began the process. We started with "F" and worked backwards to "A" since "A" had been our most cantankerous hive last year. "F" was also the only hive with only one super.

I moved the whole hive to location "F1" and then placed an empty supper on the site of "F". I placed 2 frames of eggs, larva, and nurse bees on the "F" site. Then I added a frame of honey and pollen. The rest of the frames were empty waxed frames. I added some empty frames to the "F1" site and closed them up.

Now I never found a single queen in any of the hives yesterday but I made sure to leave eggs in both hives just in case the queen ended up on the original location.

We repeated the steps for each hive. Since it was very cloudy, it took a long time to confirm eggs were in each frame. The whole process took us 3.5 hours.

Despite the clouds, the bees were fairly docile. Noah got stung 5 or 6 times and I got stung about 7 or more but that isn't really too bad considering the weather.

I will check the splits next Saturday and make sure there are queen cells in all of them.

Now I know you shouldn't count your bees before they hatch but I'm going to.
New Hive Count: 13 Hives

The Magnificent Seven

Hive-B.1.1.VSH

"Adopt the pace of nature: her secrete is patients." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

I'm down to (8) hives; one at the old farm and seven at Dr. D's. However, three of those hives are from recent splits. Given my recent loses, I've been obsessing over these remaining hives. The thought wakes me up at night and I imagine empty hives that look like the ruins of bygone civilizations.

The trouble is that with this project still only a side venture, it's priority often slips down the list. So when I finally got out to Dr. D's this weekend, I was nearly sick with worry. However, it turned out to be the best beekeeping day of the year.

For starters it was a pleasant 85͒ and sunny. Given how hot it's been this year, this felt like air-conditioning.

However, what made the trip so wonderful was how well all the bees were doing.

Hive-A has filled six of the ten re-waxed frames with honey.

Hive-B was full but didn't show any signs of swarm cells, so I added a box of re-waxed frames.

Hive-C.1 had three boxes so I harvested a box of honey, leaving two supers.

Hive-C (like Hive-B) was full but didn't have any swarm cells, so I added a box of re-waxed frames.

Hive-B.1 & Hive-VSH both had lots of activity so I didn't open them.

Hive-B.1.1.VSH, despite previously being overrun by beetles, has snapped back. It has a beautiful queen that is laying like crazy and the bees have filled six frames with brood, pollen, and honey.

All seven hives are doing really well. In fact, next year, I plan to make splits in mid-August since the bees seem to have so much to forage.

Re-Waxing Frames:

I mentioned that I put re-waxed frames in the hives. I've mentioned this before but bees WILL NOT build on bare plastic frames. They have to have a thin coat of wax on them. "How thin?" is the question.

I melted what little wax I had in a metal pan and added two parts water. Then I did my best to stir the mixture as I worked to make the wax as thin as possible. However, I am not sure the water actually mixed with the wax.

The first (13) frames worked out perfectly. Each took just enough wax to highlight the printed comb pattern. However, the last seven frames had mostly water but it gave the frame a slightly tacky feel - Hopefully this was enough wax to get the bees started.

To see if it works, I marked each frame with either "Good Wax" or "Wet Wax". I placed the good frames in the middle of the hive so that the bees could fill these first but hopefully they will fill them all.

End of the year:

I only plan to open the hives two more times this year. This weekend I will go back to Dr. D's and gather all of my hive top feeders. After I caulk the inside of them, I will fill the void with diatomaceous earth and cedar chips.

I will then return to Dr. D's to set the hives up for winter. I will place a feeder on each hive as well as an unscented swiffer pad on each the bottom board. Finally, I will dock the front entrance up so that there is only about an inch of open space. With that, I will say a prayer, and wait for Spring. I'll still visit the hives once a month to heft them and feed them if need be but other wise, the season is over.

Miller Method - (8) Cells and (1) Virgin Queen

"You can't always get what you want but if you try sometimes, well you might find, you get what you need." - the Stones

I miscalculated the birth of the queens. On my queen rearing spreadsheet, queens hatch at (16) days - however, that is from the day the egg is laid. The queen actually hatches just (13) days after she is grafted/started.

Luckily I realized this yesterday and was able to rescue about (8) cells. There was a beautiful virgin queen milling around on the frame but she had just hatched and had not had time to begin her executions.

There were two opened queen cells but there were still (8) sealed ones. I used a knife to cut the cells out and then placed them in wire cell protectors. I said "about (8)" because I cut one cell a little close and opened the rear of the cell. The queen inside was still white but was moving. I pinched the end closed and then placed her at the far end of the cell bar so I would know which one she was. Maybe she will make it but I doubt it.

The upside is that on July 27th, I should have at least (7) newly mated queens plus the one I left in Hive-VE. Of course I am pleased that the Miller Method worked but I can't count this as a queen rearing victory as it is not suitable for commercial use. Until I successfully start breeding queens using the grafting method, I am still just a hobbyist.

I did place the queen cells on the bottom of the same bar I use for grafting. This kills two birds with one stone: it lets the bees polish the cups while holding the new cells. On Wednesday I will make (9) mating nucs and place the (8) cells in them. I'll make (9) in preparation for upcoming grafts.

I checked Hive-VD (giggle giggle) and it is doing well. It has two frames of bees in it and while there are still beetles, they seem to be held at bay. I did take the time to crush all the beetles I saw - I think this method (though time consuming) is actually fairly effective.

At this moment, I feel like things are starting to come together.

More Queens Than A Cher Lookalike Contest - Graft #2

"Agh, that is bad luck. But grandfather say, 'It never rain everyday.'" - Mr. Kim, The Fifth Element

I've been quoting that line since 1997 (holy shit - I just realized how old that movie is... even worse... how old I am) - actually I've been misquoting it, as the case may be, since I always say, "It can't rain everyday." Either way, I've had two sunny days in a row now and I hope the trend continues.

Yesterday, Noah and I went to Dr. D's to get two frames of eggs. I say eggs because if there are eggs then the adjacent larva is young enough for queen rearing.  While there, we did a few quick hive checks.

We didn't check Hive-A. Until we requeen it, I could do without the aggression - so we moved on.

It turned out that our walkaway split of Hive-B was textbook. The queen actually ended up in the split (Hive-B.1) and is doing really well. So we knew Hive-B would have the queen cells and boy did it. There were at least (12) to (15) cells. There was a lot of bees in both hives and they were all very docile.

Hive-VSH is doing well.

Hive-D.3 is still infested with beetles and there is still about a hundred bees waiting inside for death.

Hive-C looked much stronger. I still need to split it and replace the rotted boxes but it seems to be doing fine.

The last thing we did was to take (2) frames of eggs from Hive-VSH, without taking any bees, and put them in a Five Frame Nuc (i.e. VE). We then shook (4) frames of bees from Hive-B into the nuc. If that doesn't survive the beetles then it is hopeless.

To finish our visit we placed Don the Fat Bee Man beetle traps in all of the hives.

We took VE home and did the following:

One frame of eggs was placed in Hive-A.1.VSH to let them raise their own queen.

The other frame was taken to my shop table where I made my grafts. The queen cups had been in VD (giggle giggle) overnight for polishing and were made from new (chemical free) wax. I also kept a moist towel over the larva while I grafted them.

It again took me (30) minutes to complete my grafts. I would have liked to have gone faster but I'm still learning and it is very delicate work - especially for a guy with Bananas Hands (That's my wife's nickname for me).

When I completed my grafts, I took the remaining frame of eggs and, using the Miller Method, cut it in a zigzag pattern.

The miller frame was placed in VE and the grafts were placed in VD (giggle giggle).

On a separate note: I found about (5) hive beetles in VD (giggle giggle) and a few beetle larva. All of them were on the bottom board and it appeared the beetle larva was eating the Crisco in the FBM traps. I squished all of the beetles but left the larva in the Crisco to see if that kills them.

At the end of the day, the Hive Count is: (8) Hives and (2) Nucs.

A Good Day to Make Splits

"Five hundred. … five hundred fights, that’s the number I figured when I was a kid. Five hundred street fights and you could consider yourself a legitimate tough guy. You need them for experience. To develop leather skin. So I got started. Of course along the way you stop thinking about being tough and all that. It stops being the point. You get past the silliness of it all. But then, after, you realize that’s what you are." Vin Diesel, in Knockaround Guys

After a long (very hot) afternoon of beekeeping, I came home and jumped in the shower - that's when I saw them. Four stings on my forearm. I knew I had gotten a couple of stings; one on my back and one under my arm but that was it. That's when I realized I had come to a turning point. I quit counting stings about a month or so ago (right after the day I got those (60) at one time). It stopped being the point... and I got past the silliness of it all.

This may be as much to do with the calmer hives I have begun to breed. At present I only seem to have one cantankerous hive left at Dr. D's place. Hive-A is still fairly aggressive but Hive-A.1.VSH has become as calm as a Hindu cow.

All and all it was a great day of beekeeping. Here is what we did:



Hive D.3.VSH has succumb to the hive beetles. In fact it has also begun to have Wax Months. There was still about a cup of bees in the hive but the beetles had destroyed all the wax. For now we just left it but I will retrieve it this weekend.

Hive A.1.VSH was dealt with next. We opened the top and found it full of bees. No further inspection was needed. We stapled #8 HW Cloth over any openings and ratchet strapped the whole thing tight. We then loaded it up and took it to the house.

Hive B was then split. I did this in the walkaway split style. First I moved the top two boxes of honey to the new location. I then placed the brood chamber on top. From there I split the brood chamber in half, making sure to put eggs and stores in both. I then used the frozen frames (after they thawed) to fill in the open spaces. I then placed the single box with about two frames of nurse bees back on the original location.

When complete, I had a new hive... Hive B.1 I didn't put a VSH egg in this one because it was already calm and I want to keep some genetic diversity in the apiary.

VC was last. VA and VB are the two five frame nucs that the beetles destroyed. I've decided for now just to keep the letters running in order. VC was filled with two frames of brood, eggs, & bees from Hive A and one frame of just eggs from Hive VSH. We then took it home with us. At home, I took the mini mating nuc full of bees and added them to VC. I also took the VSH frame of eggs and placed them in Hive D.VSH.

I would have like to have done more but the heat was pretty bad and my suit was stifling. Saturday I plan to do more. Nonetheless, it was a great day of beekeeping and I felt confident in all of my hive manipulations. It is late in the season but I think I still have time to make some gains.

Hive Count: (9) Hives and (1) Five Frame Nuc

The Harvard of Bee Yards

If "failure is the best teacher" then my bee yard is the Harvard of bee yards.

This weekend proved to be heartbreaking. The two Five Frame Nucs I made have both been destroyed by hive beetles.

Out of the two nucs, one was filled with lots of bees from Hive-A. It should have been a strong hive but I didn't secure the bottom of the feeder properly and it left a hole for the bees to get in. Half of them drown while the other half got trapped in the feeder box leaving the hive defenseless.

The result was an inch thick layer of muck and beetle maggots on the bottom board. The infestation was epic. The fowl smell emanating from the boxes distinctly resembled a hog pen.

The other nuc was also infested and destroyed but not like the first one - though dead is dead.

I took all the frames out and brushed the bees into the air over a Mini Mating Nuc - letting them fly down to the box that I placed in the location of the infected nucs. I then placed each frame on the ground (not the best move but I was scrambling). When I was done, I took the (8) most infested frames and placed them in a trash bag that I put in the freezer - I tried to fit all ten but I didn't have room. The other two I put in the sun.

I finally went for the nuclear option in hopes of preserving Hive-D at my house - I used Diatomaceous-earth. I spread it in a 4'x4' area under the hive and then covered that with cedar chips.

This was the last thing I wanted to do but my bees are in dire straights. My way of thinking is that the beetle larva will burrow into the ground beneath the hive to pupate and when they emerge the beetle will pass through the Diatomaceous earth and die - while the cedar chips will keep the bees from being exposed.

I am also looking into getting some chickens. This option is only possible at my house but I'm going to try it out. However since I can only seem to find baby chicks (rather than grown birds) it will be a couple of months before they are old enough to be of any use.

Tractor Supply sells them by mail but you have to get (10) and I only want about (3). That being said, here is a quote from the website:
Egg Production Rate: Females ONLY; Ranges from 264-285 eggs/year

You just know they had to put that "female ONLY" part in there because some jackass called complaining that his roosters just weren't laying.




The Good, The Bad, The Splits

“A misery is not to be measured from the nature of the evil, but from the temper of the sufferer.” -    Joseph Addison

I have another cantankerous hive - though stings don't bother me as much as they once did. Just the same, Hive-A has become as vile as Hive-D was a few weeks back but it obviously has a queen as seen by all of the brood I found.

Ironically, earlier this year, I spent an hour in this same hive in nothing more than a T-shirt and Veil. I can only assume that on that day, I either clumsily killed the queen or I simply wore out my welcome for the year and am now marked for death by her highness.

It's hard to say how many stings I took yesterday, though I am guessing about (15) - almost all of which were through my socks. My suit, for the most part, did it's job.  But I'll get back to all that in a minute.

Before I start, Let me explain my updated Hive ID System.

The Updated Hive ID System

Since I started with Hives A, B, C, & D at Dr. D's place, those are my parent hives. When I split a hive, I add a number (i.e. The first split from D became D.1).

Since I bought (3) VSH queens and only one survived, I have named that hive VSH as that queen is now my main egg donor. So now when I requeen a hive I add VSH to the end to signify where the queen came from (i.e. Hive D.3.VSH was originally the 3rd split from D but was requeened with VSH).

Subsequently all Five Frame Nucs will be given the letter V at the start as in Roman Numeral V. As these will become Parent Nucs, I am starting them off with letters rather than numbers (i.e. The first Five Frame Nuc that I made is VA and it has a VSH queen cell so it is VA.VSH)

If you are confused... well... read the damn chart... I'm moving on!

WEDNESDAY:

Noah and I accomplished a lot.

We Split Hive-A, requeened Hive-D.3, and filled (2) Five Frame Nucs with bees and frames.

The plan was to take the queen from Hive-D.3 and place it in one of the nucs. However, there was no queen in hive D.3... or eggs... or brood - but there was (2) open Queen Cells with larva and royal jelly.

While this was a mystery yesterday, today (after reviewing my notes) I realize that the hive may have had a new VSH queen in it but that she would have just completed her mating flight. The hive was very calm - so it all makes sense. Nonetheless, we placed a frame of eggs from VSH into D.3.VSH. If they don't need a queen they can just use the brood to build up their numbers.

The (2) queen cells were removed and placed in VA.VSH and taken home. VB is queenless and it too was taken home.

Lastly, we split Hive-A. To do this, we placed all but the bottom box onto a new stand (We checkerboarded one of the box since it was mostly honey bound.). This put (3) boxes on the new location and (1) on the old location. In the bottom chamber of A.1, we placed a frame of eggs from the VSH queen as well as a couple of frames of brood from Hive-A.


The marked VSH Queen

Hive A was left with a lot of bees and the vile queen. On Saturday, I plan to reverse these two hives to let the field bees populate the larger half of the split.


We split Hive-A last. We had intended on splitting B & C as well but after taken such a beating from A, we just checked B & C and called it a day. Being repeatedly stung, whether you are used to it or not, is demoralizing. Noah managed to stay back and unstung... sort of... as we were leaving he was stung twice - I think the bees were just saying goodbye.

Total time spent was about (3) hours at Dr. D's place.

New Hive Count: (9) Hives - (2) Five Frame Nucs - and (1) barely holding on Mini Mating Nuc.

The Return of the Queen - Long Live The Queen!

These days I am much more reluctant to use the word "Miracle" when curiously great things happen. It seems lately every time I do, the next day it turns to crap.

That being said, I was amazed to find the queen that had flown away last week had returned. It turns out that it really isn't that uncommon. In fact, when I looked it up this morning, the question came up quite often. This is what Michael Bush said on Beesource.com back on 5/14/2011:

First let’s look at what to do if the queen flies. The first thing you do is stand still. She will orient on you and probably find her way back. The second thing to do is en-courage the bees to guide her back with Nasonov pheromone. To do this, take a frame out that is covered in bees and shake them back into the hive. This will cause them to start fanning Nasonov. Third, if you don’t see the queen fly back in (be watching and you may) then wait ten minutes with the cover of the hive off so she can smell the Nasonov. If you do these three things the odds are very good she will find her way back.

If you didn’t do those things, there is probably a little better than 50/50 chance she will find her way back anyway.

So dear friends, sometimes, they come back. However, I'm still worried that my queen might be damaged from the hairclip squish I gave her last weekend. Time will tell.

Moving On:

It only violates Child Labor
Laws if I pay them. :)

This weekend I finally managed to paint the (15) mini nucs I built a few month back. It is a pitiful accomplishment considering I need (750) of them to meet my goal.

Nonetheless, I invited my nephew Zane over to help me. I did this on a whim - I think subconsciously I was trying to share the misery with anyone who would be gullible enough to help. He in turn, invited his friend - probably for the same reason. However, since I'm not a complete dick, I decided to make it as fun as I could. So first they had to paint the boxes with primer and paint (I did the last coat to make sure all the spots were covered)... then I let them finger paint the fronts.

They actually seemed to enjoy the whole process.

I didn't take any pictures of the ones they finger painted but to be honest, they all look like shit. Of course that was after I had to shoot down several of their 11-year-old ideas. The top ones included, homages to their favorite famous YouTubers, a picture of a hand giving the finger, and other general curse words. Silly me, I expected cartoon bees and flowers rather than belligerent graffiti!

Luckily, they actually enjoyed painting the boxes solid more than finger painting and so they only defaced five or so of them. The rest I painted with different solid colors as originally planned.

That was Saturday. Sunday I built five frame nucs. That isn't totally true. I actually spent most of the weekend playing video games. I am sure Joel Salatin (Author of You Can Farm) would take great joy in chastising that epic waste of time. He would be right. If fact, despite the fact that I love video games, I rarely play them for fear of being sucked into them for days on end. I've since asked my son to keep his damn video games in his room since I can't be trusted!

However, the five frame nucs were actually a revelation. The evolution of my pallet repurposing project has made a huge breakthrough. The sides of my hives are now built with (3) 1x4's (which are actually 3/4"x3 1/2" wide) - that makes the side 10 1/2" tall. Then I make the fronts out of (4) one-by strips that I have ripped down to 2 1/2". This locks all the boards together. When the finished product is put together, I trim it down to 9 5/8"on the table saw to give it a nice flat bottom.

The best part is that I ripped all of the material out for (5) nuc boxes in about an hour and could assemble them in about (15) minutes. That sort of production could make it possible to manufacture all the hives I need in just a matter of days rather than months.


As I mentioned in my last blog, I am considering going to all (5) frame nuc boxes rather than standard (10) frame hives. Don the Fat Bee Man promotes this idea and I can see the benefits - the lighter boxes not being the least of these.

Wednesday, Noah and I will be heading out to Dr. D's place to do several walk away splits, as well as fixing up a couple of five frame nucs to bring home. I will also be transforming Hive-D (the one at my house) into a triple stacked five frame nuc. This will give me (3) separate nucs rather than just one hive at the house. This will give me more options for my breeding activities.

Hive Location - A tip for the beginner

I cut a 1" hole in the cheese cloth this morning
to let Hive-D.3's foraging bees slowly enter.

I swapped Hive-D with Hive-D.3 yesterday. This segues into today's topic - Hive Placement.

Most books will tell you that the best location to place a hive is in a sunny area, with a windbreak, and an easterly view... and they are right. However, what most of them seem to leave out is that the hive should be placed in a location that you can drive fairly close to.

Now of course, when you have to put hives on other people's land, you have to take what you can get. But keep in mind, a deep hive can weigh over 80lbs and a 5 gallon bucket of sugar water can weigh as much as 60lbs. That's a lot of weight to carry for 100-200yards. Even with my hand cart, the process of driving out 15 miles into the country, swapping (2) hives, and checking the other (4) in that yard took a few hours - when it should have only taken minutes.

So whenever possible, place your hives in a convenient location for hauling equipment.

So back to my hive swap. The biggest hurdle I had to overcome was old equipment. Some of this equipment has holes in the corners where the bees freely move in and out. Not bad for ventilation but not so good for transportation.

The solution... Cheese Cloth. I bought a pack of cheese cloth and wrapped the hives up tight. This let air in and out while keep the bees inside. I kind of expected them to get caught in the cloth like they do in dryer sheets but they seem to move on it quite freely. I also considered plastic wrap but I worried it might make the bees too hot. In the end the cheese cloth worked perfectly.

New Apiary Map

So Hive-D (the same hive that gave me 60 stings a few weeks back) is now tranquilly sitting in my
back yard. The new queen (a highbred of Broke-T's VSH queen and the survival stock of my apiary) has calmed the hive down splendidly.

Hive-D.3 on the other hand is much more aggressive but not so much it is hard to deal with. I placed a frame of young brood from Hive-D.2 into Hive-D.3 and hopefully it has a few viable larva in it to requeen with. I'll check it Saturday if weather permits.

Sadly, D.1 did not survive the hive beetles. The hive was abandoned and with all of its stores robbed, the beetles had left too.

So of the (3) VSH Queens I bought, only one survived. This is not Broke-T's fault. Hive-D.1 was overcome by beetles and I am sure that Hive-D.3 lost the queen due to my careless manipulations the day I checker-boarded the hive.

Not to worry though as Hive-D now has the queen I wanted. This highbred should be stronger and calmer than any queen I've had before and will become the mother of most of my future stock.

New Hive Count: (8) hives - (2) mini nucs.

No Queens - What to do?

I finished up teaching classes on Saturday and so Sunday I finally had time to check my backyard bees -- The two Mini Nucs and Hive-D.3 -- sadly not one of the three had a queen.

That being said, I suspected the queen was gone from Hive-D.3 as soon as I opened it because when I gave my first puff of smoke the hive began to roar with the sound of flapping wings. I also got stung (6) times - those queenless hives are cantankerous.

The last time I checked D.3, I couldn't find any young larva or eggs but there were (3) frames of brood. I told myself that it was just late in the afternoon and it was too dark to see - but it wasn't. The queen was gone and now there is no brood left in the hive.

The two mini nucs are building comb but there is no eggs, larva, or brood - so no queens either.

I think I have reached a turning point because none of this bothered me. Not because I don't care but because I am sure I can fix the problem.

Wednesday is my beekeeping day and so I think I will bring home a hive from Dr. D's and take Hive-D.3 out there. If Hive-D has a new queen (Which I pray it does), then I will bring it home (assuming it has now calmed down).

If that goes according to plan, then I can start grafting queens right away from Hive-D.

As for Hive-D.3, I will place a frame of eggs from Hive-D.2 into it and let it re-queen itself.

While I have a queenless hive and two queenless nucs, I am still leaving my count at (9) hives and (2) mini nucs.

Beetles - My Arch-nemisis

I'm still struggling with the Mating Nuc Concepts. The idea to leave one of the nucs closed up with tape worked out pretty well. Except for the one that I didn't keep closed  absconded.

Abscond is a beekeeping term that gets used to say the bees left. However if you look it up in Merriam's Dictionary it says:

ab·scond

əbˈskänd/

verb

past tense: absconded; past participle: absconded

1. 
   

   leave hurriedly and secretly, typically to avoid detection of or arrest for an unlawful action such as theft.

    

   • (of someone on bail) fail to surrender oneself for custody at the appointed time.
   • (of a person kept in detention or under supervision) escape.

     
     

     "176 detainees absconded"

      
   • (of a colony of honeybees, especially Africanized ones) entirely abandon a hive or nest.

Great word but anyway... The bees left the opened hive.

You can see the beetle larvae on
the drone brood.

Noah and I inspected them on Saturday only to find that the bees in out first nuc (M1) were thriving, our previously closed nuc (M2) were doing fair, and the third nuc (M3) was empty except for a shit load of those damned beetles (insert fist shaken to the heavens).

I took the infected - is it affected or infected? Beetles are a F***ing curse so lets go with afflicted! I took the afflicted frame out and placed it in a gallon size Ziploc freezer bag (perfect fit) and put it in the freezer to kill everything in it. I'll place it in M1 later this week - no reason to waste the comb.

After that, Noah and I checkerboarded Hive-D.3, making it two boxes deep. I say boxes because there seems to be a lot of different words for the same terms. The bottom boxes are brood chambers and the top boxes are honey supers but all my boxes are the same size, so screw it, I'm saying boxes to keep down confusion.

Checkerboarding is another term that has different meanings. Here in the south it means that you placed a new frame between each drawn out frame in a box. I saw a YouTube video with a guy in Canada who had been chastised for using it in this manner but here in the south, that's what it means.

Again... ANYWAY... now that the hive has two boxes (or brood chambers) it should be ready to graft from in about two weeks. The box already had three good frames of brood and was packed with bees. I only wore a veil, gloves and an untucked shirt, so I got stung about 5 times.

Lastly we poisoned all the poison ivy in the yard (it was everywhere) and, as we did a, a rogue bee accosted us. First it bumped Noah's head, then it buzzed mine, and before we could do anything, it skewered my little buddy right in the face... that's when we called it a day.

Hive Count: 9 hives and 2 Mini Mating Nucs

I Have No Idea What I'm Doing... But I'm Doing It!

Noah and the (3) MMNs ... and poison ivy
all over the damn fence!!!!!

The new Mini Mating Nucs (MMN) we made the other day aren't doing well.

For starters, they had dysentery as could be seen from the brown streaks on the front of each box. At first I thought it might be Nosema but after doing a little research I concluded it might have come from my sugar syrup.

Why the sugar syrup? Well a couple of reasons.

1. I didn't measure my sugar to water very accurately. It turns out that too much water in the feed can cause the solids in the bees stomach to swell and that could give'em the shits.

2. I mixed too much sugar water the previous time and let it mold - or whatever that slime is called that it produced. Then I rinsed the jug out with dish soap but didn't really disinfect it. So the water could have been tainted that way.

At the end of the day, I concluded it wasn't Nosema since the parent hive seemed healthy. So I made fresh syrup, treated it with Tea Tree Oil as is a natural remedy for dysentery, and then discarded the old syrup.

The next problem I had with the (3) MMNs is that all the bees went into a single MMN. That is great for the winner but the other two MMNs failed to keep their queen cell warm. Real shame.

So Noah and I decided that the best course of action was to skip splitting hives and just correct our MMNs.

This time we decided to cut the queen cells and the adjacent comb out and rubber band them into MMN frames. This way the brood and the queen cells were together and would encourage the bees to keep both warm.

This turned out to be best as half of the queen cells had already hatched - or at least had been opened by the first queen to hatch. Only (4) viable cells were left.

So we did as planned. Queen Cells from Hive-D (which actually came from Hive-D.2s eggs) and then we took bees from Hive-A.

Hive-D was as vicious as I've ever seen a hive. I accidentally bobbled one of the cut outs (which might cause the queen cell in it to fail) but when I did, Hive-D swarmed me so completely that I almost couldn't see through the onslaught. Luckily my suit did it's job. I still got stung (15) times but I had more than (20) or (30) stingers in the chest of my suit. Hopefully the new queen will mate and then calm the hive down.

Noah got stung (3) times.

We then took nurse bees from Hive-A. They too were on the cantankerous side. Possible due to all of the pheromones radiating from the stingers in my suit. However, we shook a few frames of bees into the (2) MMNs and then closed them up. 

Note the brown streaks

I closed the entrance holes with duct tape. Then, once at home and on their new site, I removed the tape from one of the MMN and left the other closed to ensure they don't all go to one nuc again.

Mabel eating cheese dip

Lastly, my dog, Mabel was stung on the ear and it swelled to about three times its thickness. I felt terrible - not that she seemed upset by it. My wife and I spent the whole night feeding her treats and loving on her. We also gave her 25mg of diphenhydramine and by this morning the swelling was much better. If my backyard bees continue to cause her problems, I will have to move the hives back out to Dr.D's place.