Bees at last, Bees at last, Thank God Almighty I've got Bees at last!

Well the title may seem a little deceiving... I received two frames from my Dad's hive today! His hive is strong enough to sacrifice a couple of frames, so kindly he did. I did NOT catch any swarming bees, but I did save the pheromone, so I may build another nuc and hang it up in the yard.

For the most part taking out frames isn't too much of a hassle. But for starting a nuc we made sure that our frames were abound of brood, honey(for themselves), and bees. While you have the hive open you can also see how things are going: looking for honey, the queen (if you can find her), disease, moths, beetles, etc.. We doubled checked for the queen to make sure she wasn't on one of the frames we took from the hive into my nuc. You don't want to set back the "mother" hive from producing; and removing the queen by accident would do just that. With the weather so nice in Florida, that would be a devastating setback on the hive and screw up the honey production.

After finding a couple of frames meeting the requirements we placed them into the nuc. Then replaced the empty slots in my Dad's hive with new frames. Now that I have a couple of frames in my nuc, its ready for it's permanent relocation under the lemon tree. Hopefully this new family of bees will recognize that they don't have a queen. When the bees recognize the absence of a queen they will secrete "royal jelly" onto one or more of the larvae in the hive. This is why its very important to pull a frame containing brood. "Royal Jelly" is what makes the larvae turn into a queen. In a situation if more than on queen is born, they will fight til the death, or if a queen is born before any others she will kill them off. Anyway, this will all take about 3 weeks. Then the new queen has to mate with drones (the only male bee in the bee world!) and she will be fertilized for life, laying about 1500 eggs a day. If all goes well, there should be a queen laying eggs in that nuc in about 21 days or so... With that being said, I'm going to build a hive for these guys to live in when they out grow the nuc (hopefully I'll make a video). If they out grow the nuc and begin to feel over crowded, they can swarm. I'm going to be prepared.






p.s The little piece of wood in front of the nuc, their "doorway", is a reducer. I put this in place because the colony is too weak to defend itself. It keeps them from all going out at once, or from other bees raiding.

Put my nuc aside! ...again

The bees have worked their way to the end frames, and now they are ready to produce honey for us! Some two or three weeks ago bees and brood cells covered our middle frames, but the end frames were untouched. Today, we checked the hive again (for disease actually) and we found that the bees are very healthy and have worked their way to the end frames. There are still many brood cells and larva in the middle frames that are ready to hatch; this is a good indication that there is a queen and a healthy hive at work. The queen lays eggs in a specific (circular) pattern and one of our pulled frames that we observed looked almost textbook-picture perfect. The outer frames are beginning to be filled with bees. The bees have began making comb on top of the foundation in those outer frames. Whereas just a couple of weeks ago you wouldn't have seen a lone bee on the outer most frames. So it is really beginning to produce here, and my father and I predict that this thing will really take off in a month or so.

So, after observation we decided to add the additional super. After taking off the top of the hive we add the Queen Excluder (picture). The purpose (as mentioned in the video) is to keep the queen in the lower part of the hive or brood chamber. This is exactly the point, you want to keep this bottom part of the hive strictly for brood. There will be some pollen and honey, however, the sole purpose of this brood chamber is to serve as a nursery and produce bees. Once the brood chamber begins to fill up, the bees will begin storing their honey in the new super we added. The super will be pure honey because the Queen Excluder is in place. The worker bees are able to fly through the Excluder with their honey, but the queen's size prevents her from getting though the Excluder and laying eggs in the new super.

Hopefully next post will be about bees in my nuc! But, I will allow the post after that to be about honey filled frames from the new super. The final picture will show you the brood chamber separated by the excluder (around the hand) and the additional super on top of that!

Yawwwwn

Still waiting... rumor has it a solo bee was around the nuc! However, I haven't seen her since. But it only takes one! One of the purposes of the scout bee is to find a new place to live when the hive is ready to swarm. The scout will leave a scent (i.e, the pheromone I put into the nuc to begin with) to "mark" their territory and consider it as a future home. Anyway, a little knowledge not sure if its 100% accurate but that's what I hear and read; if I hear and read correctly that is.. Hopefully bees soon. Ciao

Busy as a bee... well Kinda'

Today my father and I helped out Jim (the "Bee Man") with some minor upkeep on his hives. His hives sit in a local citrus grove, and a small three acre blueberry farm. Although it was still a little cool for the bees, it was the perfect temperature for me. With the sun's warmth and the natural beauty of a southern countryside, it made for a very pleasing work environment. It was the first day I had to actually put on a bee veil and some gloves. Although my hat was pink (it belonged to Jim's wife, Gladys) it still made me feel more official than usual. Today's missions were to simply look at the hives, see if they were active, and take their old feed off and put some new ones on. A task as simple as removing a mason jar and replacing it with a new one full of sugar water (or corn syrup). A quick pull of the old jar, then a even quicker slide of a new full jar to take its place. (As you can see in the picture posted, that is actually the hive we have on our property, its not the Bee Mans, but it's the exact same concept). I'm a little wary when working around the hives. Due to my allergy of bees I keep my range and work pretty slowly; often I'm mistaken for being a sissy, but I like to think of it as a cautious approach . I had only one minor incident where a few bees jumped on my head. This was partly my fault because I removed my hat/veil a little too early before getting back into the truck. My father on the other hand, they were in love with him! Small swarms were constantly surrounding him, but "better him than me" as they say :D. Overall I think we left with zero stings. I say think because I'm pretty convinced that Jim is immune to them. He may or may not of had a bee sting him, who knows, but he is very comfortable with the bees. In my head being comfortable comes with a hefty price, at least from the stories I've heard..One day my bravery may reach his level, but until then I'll choose the least vulnerable approach I can take!














As for my Nuc, there isn't too much going on. But this hot weather is getting me excited, and hopefully I can catch a swarm within a month or two. I have added some industrial size staples (I cannot think of their name right now) to my nuc making the entire thing one piece and portable. The pheromone still hangs and the nuc remains empty, but that's OK. It's still very early in the season, and I have pleny of patience. Until then I'm still reading my books/magazines, watching my DvD's, and paying close attention on the trips that I take like today! Thanks to Jim, My Dad and I have learned so much, and have had some great first hand experiences that would have taken me 100x longer to comprehend from a book.

Day One - Nuc One

Today I have put out my first nuc. The nuc is located in my front lawn, facing the south in partial sunlight. My father and I put the nuc on an old mailbox post approximately a yard off of the ground. This is a five frame nuc that has been tacked with a pheromone on the bottom of the center frame at the entrance side. I also took the peel of a lemon and rubbed it on the outside of the nuc, as well as the inside of the lid. Hopefully the lemon zest and the pheromones will help lure the swarming bees into their new home. Not to mention the five frames of foundation (as seen in the picture, you can also see the pheromone tacked on the bottom right). Until the next post, we wait for bees..