Artificial Swarm

With so many bees on the combs it took nearly 10 minutes to find the queen before a split could be accomplised. After finally locating her, I moved that comb (mainly drone brood) to the new hive in addition to some newly laid worker larvae, capped brood, and pollen/honey.

After placing the queen into the new hive, hardly any of the returning worker bees went to the queen! It took a good half hour before any 'old hive' bee visited the entrance holds of the 'new hive'. I quickly discovered why it was so important to place capped brood in the hive. As the new brood emerge they will take ownership of the hive, while the older bees remember their earlier lives in the 'motherland'. A few of the bees left the new hive, flew out, and flew into the old one; I guess old habits die hard!

Below are but a FEW of the 30+ queen cups (swarm cells) present in the hive.

Preparing to Swarm

I have been closely monitoring the hive after observing a large quantity of queen cups. The hive's population has increased exponentially since early spring, and it is obvious that they are preparing to divide (swarm). It has been very wet and cool in the region lately, and this is causing them to become stir-crazy and crowded. Every comb is covered to the brim with bees, and under many of those combs are capped brood. To combat this overcrowding, the hive prepares these queen cups and the current queen 'works out' to get her body ready to fly - something she hasn't done since her mating flight at 22-27 days old.

Queen and Drone: Mating Flight

Yesterday (April 28) I found at least four queen cups with EGGS! Swarming is evident and soon. I am thankful that my dad constructed a second hive as that will be used to complete an artificial swarm. This will be my first attempt at the technique which splits the hive. In the new hive will be placed the current queen, half the capped brood, larvae, honey and pollen, workers and nurse bees (which will be quite easy with it being chilly and damp outside). The key is to be sure that in this new hive are no queen cups. The old hive will have the queen cells (queen cups with eggs) that the nurse bees will rear.

First Varroa Mite Sighting of the Season!

This beauty is the Varroa Destructor, enlarged to epic proportions! Today, as I went to the hive during my lunch break, I noticed a few drones on the ground (alive) struggling to flip off their backs.

Looking closer, I noticed something was definitely happening to the hive. This was an unmistakable sign of Deformed Wing Virus. With the remaining time before class, I suited up and went in! The remaining drones inside had fully developed wings, looked healthy, etc.

...and just when I was on the last frame, I noticed what looked like a red 'queen mark' on a worker. I quickly pulled the bee off the frame and found the little Varroa mite trying to hide.

Stay tuned to see if my treatment works.

B(ee) is for Beneficial

The media has brought awareness to the importance of the Honeybee and to a noticeable population decline. Apis Melifera is the pollinator of over $7 BILLION in agricultural products. With a decline in the Honey Bee, so goes our vegetation and domestic/international products. My little backyard-hive was quite helpful to the vegetable gardens around the neighborhood. We have received numerous reports from area homes having higher than normal yields.

Another CRITICAL element with retaining Honey Bee colonies is to keep a non-Africanized population in your area. Think Urban Sprawl - sort of. Low populations of native bees can allow Africanized bees to easily take over, ESPECIALLY in the southern United States. AHB

An Africanized honey bee (left) and a European honey bee work on a honeycomb. The Africanized bee, smaller than its European counterpart, has apparently now made its way into Georgia. SCOTT BAUER, USDA AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH SERVICE Extracted Link

Pollen Basket

When a honey bee visits flowers, it collects both nectar and pollen from the plant. Pollen is used as a source of protein for the hive. In order to facilitate transport, the bee compacts the pollen into the bristly hair of its back leg. The image below shows the tibia's hairs that allow for pollen collection.

Below are various pollen grains under a scanning electron microscope.

Author/Photographer/Artist: Dartmouth Electron Microscope Facility

Discarding Pupae

In the image below, just left of center, you will see a open cell with a pupa in its 'purple eye stage'. Since the other brood cells surrounding this are capped (developing into adult bees), this is a sign to the beekeeper that there is something wrong with it and the bees will soon discard the pupa.

Here is a close up of a pupae in purple eye phase. 

(Image courtesy of http://www.caes.uga.edu/)

Honeybee Facts

Honeybee Facts via Back Yard Beekeepers Association

The Hive is ACTIVE!

A peek into the top-bar hive. 

Look at all that capped brood! I lightly blew on the comb to get the bees to move, in order to take this shot. As you can see, the queen is laying a very strong brood pattern. In a few days, these bees will break through and start work inside the hive. 

The Queen

After the Queen lays the eggs, they develop into larvae (seen in the cells). When each larvae reach the appropriate stage, the nurse bees cap the cells (bottom left) for the larvae to develop into a pupa and emerge as an adult. 

The cell size is CRITICAL to the health of the hive. This comb is 100% natural; there is no foundation on which the bees have drawn the wax. Allowing the hive to establish their own cell size (something that cannot be done with 'store-bought' foundation) helps improve the hive's health. If the cells become too large mites and other parasites have opportunities to ruin the colony.

Landscape of the Comb

Bees May Be "Entombing" Their Own Hives to Escape Pesticides : TreeHugger

Bees May Be "Entombing" Their Own Hives to Escape Pesticides : TreeHugger