31 March, 2010 - 10 am

It was about 75º, clear skies and no wind at the bee yard.

I checked the feeder jar of the hived swarm and it was empty. Replaced with a full jar. Watched the bees entering/exiting and saw bees bringing in pollen. Maybe the queen is there!

29 March, 2010 - 10:30am

It was about 50º at the bee yard. Overcast and windy.

Checked on the swarm hive today. The feeder jar was down to 1 cup so I replaced it with a full jar.

Because of the cooler temps none of the hives were very active.

28 March, 2010 - 11:30 am

It was about 70º and partly cloudy.

I didn't inspect Alpha or Beta hives today, I'll check in on Tuesday or Wednesday for signs of a queen.

The frames I removed from the Beta hive are being cleaned up nicely by the bees.

I checked on the hived swarm today. There is a lot of in/out activity of the hive. I didn't open the hive but I did look underneath through the screened bottom board and there are not so many bees there today. It looks like the queen left. But there there are alot of bees inside at the top of the hive feeding from the feeder jar. They consumed 1 quart of sugar water since yesterday!! I put a replacement on and will check again tomorrow morning.

27 March, 2010 - 1pm

It was about 75º and breezy.

I thought I would check the Alpha Hive to see if the queen cells hatched. So far they have not. The bees are very busy storing honey and pollen. There are alot less bees so it seems they swarmed again.

The Beta Hive still has alot of bees. Couldn't find any queen, eggs or larva. But the supercedure cells look good, hopefully they will hatch soon. I did a bit of checker boarding in the Beta hive to reduce congestion. The frames I removed had curing honey and pollen. I put those about 50' from the hive so they get cleaned out.

I have done the checkerboarding to the Alpha and Beta Hive. I noticed that the Alpha Hive has already started to draw comb on one of the foundation frames.

While I was gathering up some pine straw for the smoker my Dad spotted a swarm of bees clinging to a fallen branch that was near the bee yard.

We gathered up the necessary equipement to hive the swarm. This time though, we used a queen excluder in between the bottom board and the hive body to keep the queen. Four frames of comb with pollen and uncured honey were installed, the rest of the frames are foundation. A jar of sugar water was installed and I will check on them tomorrow.

28 March , 2010 - 10 am

I received my confirmation letter for shipment of 3 pounds of bees and queen from Gardner's Apiaries today.

I will be putting these bees in my back yard.

25 March, 2010 10 am

Went out to check on the swarm that I hived...and it was gone! So I cleaned up the equipment and put it away.

Its too soon and too cool to look in on the Alpha and Beta Hives today. I will check on them this weekend if the weather is better.

24 March, 2010 - 10 am

Checked on the bees today. Noticed a swarm settled on a small tree about 12 feet from my hives. I went ahead and looked through my hives for signs of queens, eggs. No luck. Both hives do seem to have less bees... so that swarm was from one of my hives.

After the hive inspections, I gathered up the swarm and put it in a hive body next to the tree the bees swarmed. The hive body had 3 frames of drawn comb and 7 frames of foundation. I put a bottle of sugar water on it and will check tomorrow and see if the hive stays.

20 March, 2010 - 1 pm

It was a clear day, slightly breezy and 74º.

Alpha Hive

The hive had thousands of bees on the front of the hive. I did a hive inspection and examined both hive bodies.

I did not find any eggs or young uncapped brood. All I found was capped brood. I could not find the queen. I did find 8 hatched queen swarm cells and 2 supercedure cells.

I did find that both hive bodies have curing honey and pollen everywhere.

The bees are so numerous that they were clinging to each other on the frames of both hive bodies. So on the top hive box I removed 5 frames that didn't have brood and put in frames with just foundation to give the bees something to do.

I will be ordering a queen this coming monday, if any are available.



Beta Hive

I did a quick inspection, but only looked through the top hive body. I found eggs, larva and capped brood, so this hive seems to have a queen!!! I did find that this hive also has honey and pollen stored everywhere. I did install a honey super to help with this, but I might have to remove some frames to reduce a potential congestion problem.

19 March, 2010 - 10 am

Clear skies, breezy and 70º at the bee yard.

As of the 16th I stopped feeding the bees sugar water, forgot to note that in previous posts. The bees didn't seem to be consuming as much.

I was just going to take a look at the outside of the hives today, no inspections were planned. Within a few minutes of my arrival, the Alpha Hive sent out thousands of bees in the air and they started to land and cluster on the front of the hive. It sure looked like the beginnings of a swarm. I was able to take photos and a couple of movies. I will post when possible.

After half an hour or so the bees dispersed and headed back into the hive and some went under the hive. So the swarming has begun.

The Beta Hive was very active today as well but they did not do anything like Alpha. They are a very strong hive too at this point and I have already put a super on to give them something to do.

Right now both hives have a super, maybe this will help them...I really need to read that chapter on swarming.

Pictures and movies of Alpha Hive...

This movie is moments before the swarm/swarm like behavior




The start of the swarm..?




Slow Motion Video of the swarming...




The bees are still going...




More Slo-Motion video...




Pictures of the Alpha Hive situation...

16 March, 2010 - 1 pm

It was about 70º, clear skies, slightly breezy at the bee yard.

Today my Dad called me at about 12:15 or so to tell me it looks like the Alpha Hive is swarming. He took a few pictures. I headed that way to check it out. Found, thousands of bees hanginging out on the right front corner of Alpha Hive. Two weeks ago they didn't look like that had these numbers!!!

I started by trying to sift through the mass of bees for a queen. I didn't find one. I opened up the hive and started looking through the frames for the queen. While I was searching for her through the frames I kept hearing a high pitched buzzing/chirping sound. When I did find the frame she was on, it was the queen making those weird sounds. I watched her for a couple of minutes while she was doing the chirping behaviour. She would move around draw herself down to the comb then make the strange sound, then move off a bit and do it again. She did this all over the frame that she was on. I didn't see any attendants with her while she was doing this. So shes either rallying the forces to swarm or she is searching for other queens. But since there were thousands and thousands of bees on the outside of the hive...seems like that was a swarm call.


Alpha Hive Swarm Pictures

13 March, 2010 - 2:30pm

It was very windy and 63º today.

Today I put a medium honey super on the Beta Hive. That hive has a lot of bees, and seems very strong.

I didn't put a honey super on the Alpha Hive at this time.

March 8, 2010 - 10 am

It was clear skies and 65º at the bee yard.

I decided to "swap boxes" of the Alpha and Beta Hives.

Both hives have two brood boxes. So for each hive, the top brood box was interchanged with the bottom brood box.


Alpha Hive

Top box was heavy, maybe around 40 lbs. Moved it to the bottom location. The bottom box was very light, but there were bees in there. There was very little comb connecting top and bottom frames so clean up was quick.


Beta Hive

Top box was also very heavy. Swapped with the bottom box. This hive had built a lot of comb between the frames of the top and bottom hives. Most of the cells were drone cells. Clean up was very messy.