Diary of the bee hives - 3rd June 2003

Crown board removed **

It was once said:

A swarm of bees in May
Be worth a load of hay;
A swarm of bees in June
Be worth a silver spoon;
Swarming in July
Let the buggers fly.

But with modern hives and feeding sugar syrup, a colony nucleus with a good queen can be made in July or even August and have a high probability of building up to a strong colony.

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August 1 2003: recent strong winds to the front of the hives and observation of the bees having difficulty landing at the entrances prompted the installation of a windbreak which will give temporary protection round the hive entrances while the plants and shrubs being planted on the bank below the hives become established.

August 8 2003: The hives have by now consumed 8-10kg sugar each. The bees in the first hive, the oldest, are now a week without artificial feeding, have drawn comb on 6 frames of the super and filled some of it with nectar and honey. Some of the stores will also be remains of the syrup feed which they put in the comb for later consumption. The middle hive, which received the 5-frame nuc, seems to be making relatively slow progress but it has by now drawn comb on two extra frames in the brood box since it was hived on 16
July. The third hive which received the 6-frame nuc is doing well with over 9 frames showing drawn comb and is therefore ready for its first super.

Bees can be seen visiting the three pools in the garden to drink and seem particularly to like drinking through the wet moss on the rim of a wooden water barrel by the house.

August 9 2003 - foraging: A survey was made of local flowers being visited in appreciable numbers by the bees. The most busy is knapweed (Centaurea nigra) which is at its peak of flowering. Less busy at this time are rosebay willow herb (Epilobium angustifolium) and bramble/blackberry (Rubus fruticosus agg.), mainly because they are coming to the end of their most prolific flowering period. There are huge stands of himalayan balsam (Impatiens glandulifera) within easy reach of the apiary but although they are humming with thousands of bees in the warm weather (midday temperature 30°C), not a single honey bee (Apis mellifera) was seen amongst them.

*Placing the queen excluder, a metal grid with precisely machined apertures which lets the workers pass but keeps the queen down in the brood box because of her large size.
**A bee fanning and exposing the Nasonov scent (pheromone) gland on the rear of its abdomen. This gland is used to signal the direction to the water, scentless food such as syrup and the hive's in/out. In this situation it is a disorientation reaction and attracts other disorientated bees back to the hive after they were shaken from the feeder.

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3 October 2003
Throughout September honey bees have been working the large stands of Japanese knotweed (Reynoutria japonica) and Himalayan balsam (Impatiens glandulifera) in the neighbourhood. Bees whitened by the balsam pollen have been observed entering the middle hive.
In late August the natural drop of the Varroa mite through the screen floor of the first hive was monitored by placing under the screen a sheet of metal coated with petroleum jelly. The daily mite drop was 11. This was unacceptably high, so in September the colony was treated with tau-fluvalinate impregnated plastic strips which releases the acaricide gradually as the bees walk over the strips inserted between the combs. In the first three days of treatment, the mite drop caused by the acaricide was 1,877,indicating a badly infested colony. This treatment will continue for a total of 6-8 weeks.
In the last week of September preparations for 'wintering down' began. The hives with roofs removed were weighed with a spring balance hooked under the top rim of the brood box. Doubling this and allowing for known weights of hive parts and estimates for the weight of the bees enables a rough figure for the weight of food stores. All three were below the desired 40 pounds for going into winter, so the bees were fed sugar syrup to make up the deficit. That the colonies are vigorous was evidenced by the rapid disappearance of syrup from the feeders -- one gallon in 24 hours. The colonies received up to 22 pounds of sugar each.
At the beginning of October the first honey bees were seen on the ivy flowers near the apiary. Ivy is the last principle source of nectar before the winter. In a good year it is possible for a colony to lay in all its winter honey stores from ivy. For the first time this year vigorous foraging of the Fuchsia on the apiary site was observed. Towards the end of October the entrances will be protected with metal mouse guards to prevent mice from entering the hive when the cold drives the bees into their essentially defenceless winter cluster. A mouse entering the hive in late autumn will unsettle the bees and seriously damage the comb, thus reducing the chances of the colony surviving the winter. The mouse guards allow the bees to pass through. This they will do on warm days in winter for 'clearing flights'.

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25 November 2003
Throughout October and the first 10 days of November the bees were very active because of the unusually warm weather for the time of year. On 7 November a temperature of 19degC was recorded in North Wales. This was the highest November temperature since UK records began. On 10 November, a sunny day with 12°C, foraging from all three hives was busier than on many a summer day, with more than 120 bees returning per minute to each hive. The big attraction continued to be the plentiful supply of ivy in the locality.
Near the beginning of the month the hives were re-hefted, i.e. their weights were checked to assess the reserves of food. This can be done by lifting the back of the hive with the roof removed until it is just clear of the stand in order to get a feel of the weight. A more precise way is to lift it with a spring-balance. To do this with as little as possible disturbance to the cluster of bees inside, the balance is hung from a vertical rod resting on the ground and the lifting applied slowly with a screw thread. A joiner's sash cramp suits the purpose well. Not only had the hives not lost weight during October but the oldest hive in the apiary had gained 6 pounds from the bees work on the ivy.
With the cold weather in late November, foraging has become confined to sunny, still days. For instance, the bees were briefly very active in the late morning of 23 November on a nearby mahonia and occasionally a bee is seen returning with gorse pollen (orange-brown). In winter brood-rearing drops to nothing or at most a small patch on one comb and a large part of the worker population dies. The bees cluster to minimise heat loss, with the queen in the middle and vary the tightness of the cluster according to the ambient temperature. They enter the empty cells leaving their abdomens projecting. Bees projecting from opposite comb faces interlock and the hairs on their abdomens reduce air flow through the cluster, keeping heat-loss to a minimum. As the winter progresses the bees consumes the honey stores, working from the centre of the brood box outwards.

Amazing sight to see bees working this Mahonia with such vigour - Mid-day, November 23rd 2003.       Mahonia 7th Dec 03 Bees working Camellia sasanqua       Top 13 December 2003 A warm sunny day (12°C) with no wind was chosen for oxalic acid treatment of hives 2 and 3 against the Varroa mite. This was considered necessary because, despite the bees having been supplied in the summer with tau-fluvalinate miticide strips in situ, in October, both hives had shown surprisingly high mite drops of 7 and 10 per day, averaged over 3 days. This was measured by catching them on a greased sheet under the floor mesh. To treat a hive, two side frames were removed and each frame of bees was slid sideways in turn and the exposed bees were sprayed with 3% oxalic acid in 9% water solution at a dosage of 3-4 ml. per comb surface or 7 ml. maximum per seam of bees. Dosages were reduced for combs incompletely covered with bees. This was completed as rapidly as possible and frames of comb restored to their original positions before closing up the hive. Not long afterwards, the unusually warm weather continued to draw a stream of foragers to the nearby Mahonia bush. Top "That which is not good for the beehive cannot be good for the bees." Marcus Aurelius, Meditations.