June 13, 2013 – How low did you go?

Smart Hive (scale)

The package is doing well, the queen is laying frame to frame, filled brood box and started laying in the 2^nd box (medium) originally partially filled with honey. Now, the second box is brood and capped honey. Time for a new medium box. As a side note, the scale is still not picking up data. Software pros should be looking into a few more details this week so we keep our fingers crossed.

SAP Hive

This one is not filling up as fast but it is in 10 frame equipment and the 2^nd box did not have as much honey. The queen is also moving between brood box and medium laying well but the outer frames are still fairly empty. They are not ready for another box yet.

Glass Hive

Oh my, our superstar queen is very busy indeed. We even found brood in the 4^th box. Now listen Missy, it is time to get back down! Of course, this is the queen that shows herself every time we pop the cover. Today, we were looking for her and that is when she decides to elude the paparazzi. We looked at every single frame on our way back up putting the hive back together, but still nothing. We decided to put a queen excluder between the 2^nd and 3^rd box, hoping to keep her down or trap her up depending on our luck. We will have to peak in there in a few days to see if we have eggs in the top boxes an indication that she is in the upper part of the nest. There are a lot of bees in there and they sure have an attitude. Once we succeed at bringing her back down, the brood can hatch and with the honey flow to start in the coming weeks, we will be ready for another box soon.

June 3, 2013 – Smooth Sailing, buzy laying…

Linda has been a most devoted GVSU beekeeper club member. Mind you, Linda has 5 kids ranging from 3-17 years of age, a hard-working husband, and she still managed to pursue a degree at GVSU, act as treasurer of the club and most importantly be suited up in the apiary with a 15 minute notice.

Linda graduated this past April and for her achievements, her husband had a beehive built, purchased equipment and a package of bees. Linda and her husband, who is becoming quite fond of the ladies now, installed their bees on the same day we installed ours.

The whole family has been fascinated by the bees coming in and out, religiously involved in filling up the feeder and often checking on the colony’s progress. Linda reported beautiful signs of normal activity indicating that all was going well. Yet, Linda was still concerned that she didn’t see eggs or larva.

I made a point to have her come out to the apiary for our first true inspection of the newly installed bees to point out what needed to be spotted.

Both new colonies have a solid 3-4 frames of eggs and larva. I find eggs so much easier to spot on new foundation. It almost seems like the tiny grain of rice-shaped eggs glow on a new yellowish foundation, and so do the tiny larva barely curving up into their C-shape. The queens were hard at work, barely noticing our presence.

That was it folks, it makes for a quick inspection when all is well.

We did peek into the Powerful Glass hive. They were not terribly pleased with our presence. We did not see the queen but she made her way down to the bottom box again as she now has 2 brood boxes, each filled with 4-5 frames of wall to wall capped brood, larva and I would assume eggs as they were difficult to spot. When all these bees hatch and the honey flow starts, we better be prepared…

The buzz in this hive was a bit peculiar to me. It was rising and falling with my every move. Pulling a frame out, buzz rise, buzz settle, placing it back in the hive, buzz rise, buzz settle, I had never experienced such intentional buzz sounds. I could almost intensify the buzz just by raising my arms. They were a bit ornery I have to say! One bee chased us to the car and circled for 20 minutes between Linda and I. We finally made a dive into the car to get rid of her. That makes me wonder what might be going on. There are a lot of bees in there, are they preparing to swarm??? I better keep a close eye on them. I should probably make a split out of them…

So Linda now knew what to look for. She returned home, suited up again and with her new trained eye, she saw her queen in action laying an egg and also found 3-4 frames of eggs and larva.

May 29, 2013 – Hommage to your Majesty

We have been itching to check on our new queens. The weather had us sit on our hands for a few days. Between 2 clouds at around 7pm, the sun came out for a brief moment so I grab the campus director Lisa Miller to come check on the new installs. It was Lisa’s first visit to the hives.

Both queen cages were empty, both marked queens were found exploring on the frames, both colonies docile and packing and unpacking in their new homes. No signs of eggs yet, but I am still terrible at spotting them. I also have to remind myself that the queens probably just made it out of their cages. Patience young beekeeper, patience – not my strongest virtue

I realize there isn’t as much to write about when all is as it should be in the apiary. On the other hand, Lisa enjoyed her first visit. She was a tiny bit apprehensive at the beginning, but that feeling vanished quickly as she was asking tons of questions about the inner-works of the fascinating life of bees. She felt the ‘zenness’ I often describe from working bees and her last words were: ‘This was great and it is much cheaper than therapy!’ – We won’t repeat that to the beekeepers loosing 30-50% of their bees every year. I am just glad we have another bee lover in the GVSU family.

May 23, 2013 – Bee Installation; Scratch that, frost warning – May 24, 2013

Bees are installed!!! After 2 postponed dates, due to bad weather in Georgia and mechanical truck troubles, the packaged bees made it to Holland Michigan on May 23^rd. We were scheduled to installed that same night, but a frost warning had us revise our plans and settle the packages in my garage for the night. On Friday May 24^th, with cool weather still hanging on, we decided to install anyway. GVSU beekeepers members suited up and the bees were ‘shakened’ into their new homes. We installed bees in the empty hive sitting on top of the scale (Smart hive) and also started a brand new hive. The new hive will be called the SAP. It is a temporary home for the bees that will hopefully find a permanent spot on the Sustainable Agriculture Project (SAP) on the GVSU Allendale (main) campus once they get final approval.

The installation went smoothly. For those of you that don’t have experience with bee package installation, view the following link:

We had some remaining honey frames, which we put in medium boxes and set on top of each of the new brood boxes filled with the packaged bees. This way, we didn’t have to worry about feeding the bees while they work to establish their nest and draw new combs in brand new hive.

Our new queens are marked with a red dot (this year’s queen color). They were both alive and well in their queen cages accompanied by 4-5 attending workers. We placed the queen cages between the 4^th and 5^th frame after removing the cork and poking a small hole in the candy filling. We closed up the hiveswhile bidding each colony a fair amount of luck.

We also took the opportunity to inspect the Glass hive. We used to refer to this one as the small hive, well, we certainly can’t do this any longer. Our Glass queen is a little powerhouse. The first brood box is a bit light, but the second brood box is well stocked with eggs, larva and capped brood. We had left the medium boxwith lots of remaining honey from the winter and felt they needed room to continue to expand. We gave them a second super to start working on. We spotted our ‘SuperStar’ queen exploring the first honey super and I found myself wishing she would move back down and go fill up that first brood box. We may have to flip the brood boxes, but we will let her roam her ‘queendom’ a little longer before we do that.

All is well in the apiary and we will keep our fingers crossed that our ‘newbees’ settle right in.

Bee Package Installation – Thursday May 23rd (approx. 7:30)

Come help us install our new bee packages and welcome our new colonies and wish them a fruitful season 2013!!!

Where: GVSU Meijer Campus in Holland

When: Thursday May 23rd around 7:30 (time is subject to change)

Who: GVSU Bee Club members, curious community members and Facebook followers

Guess that Pollen – April 25, 2013

Week of final exam, it’s a busy time, but a student after her test asked to see the bees, sure lets take a walk, it is nice and sunny and slowly warming up. I said hi to the bees and introduced them to the new student. Many were busy, coming in and out with baskets full of pollen, but wait! What is that steel-blue stuff they are bringing in??? I have never seen this color before… check this out!

When talking to an experienced beekeeper, he tells me red maple is in bloom and the pollen is sometimes a greenish blue. I did some research to verify the red maple identification and one thing led me to another, I came up with a verdict. I am fairly confident that the steel-blue (gray) pollen in question comes from Siberian Squills, this beautiful small purplish flower carpeting the forest floor these days. Anyone one wants to venture a different guess?

Spring Cleaning – April 7, 2013

Bee Club meeting at 1pm, where do we go from here? Weather permitting, into the beehives of course. We suited up and entered the apiary to clean up the house. We look in on our survivors, they were still doing well and not interested in any of my pollen patties. The temperatures were still cool so once again, we would have to come back another day to pay our respects to the queen and check on her young spring progeny.

We tore the tar paper and dismantled the big hive. Barely a handful of dead bees were left. Not a regular dead out with dead bees still in a cluster, just nothing. Another supporting evidence to the swarm and joining hypothesis, but really who knows. What was interesting to find is that there were lots of honey left in the hive, some had crystalized like a lot of last year’s cloudy honey, we think due to a dry season and low moisture content, but also some good goldenrod honey. We harvested a good 9 frames we decided to extract in the coming weeks. We left another box full for starting the new colony in May. We sealed up the cleaned out hive and returned to campus with our loot.

Spring Status:

Smart (big) hive: All bees gone, empty and cleaned up, ready for re-start

Glass (small) hive: Alive and well, good numbers, plenty of food and off to a good start for the 2013 season!!!

Eternal Hope of Spring – March 29, 2013

In the last few months, I have made the short trek more than once to place my ear to the small hive, every time with a mixture of anxious dread and hope. Every time I was rewarded with a low hum that would aleviate all my fears and make my day. I would leave the apiary with a much lighter spring in my step than I had entered it.

All beekeepers know, it is not such a feat to have a live colony in January, February and even early March. It is those long week in the spring that can make all the difference, that is when a host of events can turn your strong fall hive into a dead out.

Once again, here at the end of March, I took my son and my mother for support and entered the apiary with an accelerated heart beat. It was slightly cloudy and the air was still cool, but I had been waiting for 3 weeks to go place a few pollen patties on top of my boxes.  It is such a hard decision to make, do you open up the covers when it is cold, which could harm the bees, to bring them food, which could benefit them??? Patties were in the freezer waiting for ‘the’ best calculated risk day.

As predicted the big hive on the scale had no activity and when we lifted the cover, there was not a bee to be found. I have a feeling that colony swarmed late in the fall (as we found queen cells late in the season) and the remaining bees joined the little hive. We removed all winter ‘gear’ and carefully moved to the small hive.

As we pulled the cover off, we could see the bees still in a loose cluster. They were calm and seemed content. There were a good amount of bees, even more so then I remembered in the fall. This I attribute to my hypothesis of the big hive swarm and joining of the small hive.

Simon (my son) announced proudly that bees were coming in with pollen. I told him he must be mistaken as the cold spring had not brought any early offerings yet. Low and behold, he was right, some bees were coming in with deep yellow/orange pollen baskets full, from where? I still have no idea. It was too cold to get deep into the boxes but I was relieved and encouraged by our observations and didn’t feel the need to get in any deeper. I placed 2 pollen patties on top of the boxes. I made 2 recipes, one pollen supplement made out of pollen, brewer’s yeast and honey which smelled and tasted delicious and a pollen substitute made out of soy flour and a bit of brewer’s yeast that was not appealing to me. I was curious to see which one the bees would prefer. I peered quickly at the top of the frames to evaluate the honey stores and I was pleased (and a bit surprised) to find they still had plenty of honey. The bees didn’t seem overly enthused by my pollen offerings. We will check back on them in a week and see if they consume any of it.

We closed them up and left the yard once again with such hopes in our hearts! The little hive would probably make it out of the winter…

January quick peak! – January 9, 2013

Bright blue skies, sun shining and the little bit of snow we had was quickly melting. It was 40+ degrees out today. We had been waiting for this day to remove the extra box surrounding the - cans and to wrap this last hive (the Smart hive on the scale). I know, I know, we have been a bit lax in the winter preparations. Nonetheless, we remedied the situation.

The girls from the Glass (small) hive were out, lots of activity at the entrance, many were stretching their wings, probably cleansing themselves, it was a joy to see. As calm and gentle as ever, they took the opportunity to circle us with no sign of defensiveness. I had missed them! We quickly removed the cover, took the extra box and the 2 almost empty cans and placed the wedged inner cover and outer cover back. They seem to be doing very well.

Moving on to the Smart (big) hive, the mood was very different. To be more precise, there was no mood. No activity, no bees in sight. Removing the cover, we found some dead bees stuck to the sides of the upper boxes and frames. No one came to greet us. We removed the extra box and cans and quickly, closed up the top and wrap the remaining boxes with tar paper and a gloomy feeling. We removed the entrance reducer and peaked at the bottom, nothing. We removed some dead bees from the bottom board but the numbers were not unusual for this time of year. This is the hive that had so many bees, where did they all go? Were they queenless in the fall (which we had identified as a possibility then) and moved somewhere? We decided not to go any further, if there was a cluster, which we highly doubted was a possibility with the observations we had just made, we sure were not going to risk loosing it by taking all the boxes apart at 40 degrees. Nothing we could do at that moment would make a difference in the end. Let them BEE right?

All of our hopes now rest on our small and gentle Glass Hive, may the force be with you!

Winter Preparations – November 9, 2012

The fall semester is in full swing and most of us are holding our breath until the Thanksgiving break. Midterms, papers, projects, fall sicknesses, october winds, rain and cold temperatures have kept us out of the hives. On this Friday November 9, 2012, we wake up to a warm front and even a bit of sunshine. Temperatures in the high 50s make us scramble to put winter preparations forward and rush to the hives.

Armed with extra empty boxes and cans of sugar-water (I know, it’s a bit late for this but better late than never…), big heavy-duty felt black paper, and my wedged inner cover pieces, Jim, Linda and I venture to the beeyard.

We started with the Glass hive, small, calm and peaceful! We secured the entrance reducer complete with spaced nails serving as mice guard, we nailed the wedges on to the inner cover for a slight inclination and plenty of winter ventilation, we supplied the bees with 2 jars of sugar-water and we wrapped the whole thing with the black felt paper.

The Glass ladies are all tucked in!

We moved to the Smart hive, populated, buzzy and lets say… energetic occupants! Still pretty busy, waxy and cramped in there, boy there are a lot of bees in that hive for this time of year! They are not acting queenless that is for sure! We decide not to take them all apart. What is the point? To satisfy our curiosity? What possible benefit could it be to the bees? Even if they are queenless, there is nothing we can do. Might as well, prepare them for the winter and hope for the best. We also secured the entrance reducer, installed the sugar-water cans and wedged the cover. We didn’t however wrap that hive just yet. The engineers are to bring back the new and improved scale next week and we will need to lift the whole hive off the empty boxes and place back onto the scale. We will wrap it after the switch.

It was a beautiful warm November afternoon and our work in the hive satisfied our longing to be with the girls again. We couldn’t help but be nostalgic a bit at the idea that the long winter months are just around the corner and that we can only wait for the spring to hopefully see both colonies again.