Successful Visits to Student Hives

Yesterday, I ventured out to the Pam Nelson's home to do a bee consultation.  We found that as she suspected, one hive was tremendous in their comb building, brood rearing and resource foraging!  The brood patterns were very full and provided July isn't solid rain, Pam will have great success with this colony.  Her other hive was "slow" and although we saw the queen and lots of evidence of eggs, larva and pupa, her pattern was a bit "spotty" and had I know this earlier, I would have recommended re-queening this colony.  I am officially out of back-up queens so if any of us have trouble with queens, our options are: 1)ship up a new queen from Steve Victors  2) let a queen cell hatch out and hope that you have enough drones on hand to get the mating job done in the first three days of the queens life.  I'm proud of Pam for nurturing her bees through the cold and the heat and now the smoke!  Whew!  What a season we've had!  What we need to do now is pray for 65-75* weather in July with a bit of rain every afternoon or every other day.  This will bring in the best honeyflow we've seen in a few years! Oh, and I believe the early honeyflow has been halted due to the heat and smoke. 
A couple days ago, I visited the Fillion's home out CHSR.  They are running one Russian colony from Steve Petersen and one Italian colony from Steve Victors.  The Russians are colonizing in a top bar hive and the Italians were in a Warre hive.  The top bar was a day or two from swarming and we removed multiple queen cells together.  Cathy said they used battery jacket warmers to keep the bees warm during the freezing spring weather!  What a beautiful location! 

Combining Colonies

So I did another hive check yesterday.  I can tell you that this heat has not been good for our bees!  Don't we live in a place of extremes?  One month we're dealing with freezing temperatures and the next, heat exhaustion.  So out of three colonies at the river, one is queenless all-of-a-sudden.  I am going to combine that one with another colony.  To do so, I will take unprinted newsprint from the News Miner (free rolls that you can get in the AM from their front desk) and cut two sheets to fit over the top of a hive box.  I will place these on top of the strong colony, slice 8 -10 times in the paper with a hive tool or box knife and place the dying colony on the top.  (I'll probably remove one of the supers that is mostly empty of brood and honey so the stack of boxes doesn't get too high.)
Then I will wait until my next hive check to ensure all the paper has been eaten away by the bees and the two colonies have become one.  This allows the healthy bees that are queenless to be slowly introduced to a new family and queen.  This also increases the population of bees for the stronger colony just in time for the honey flow.  I will be glad when the swarm season is over!  Keep removing swarm cells!

Storing Equipment During the Season

One of my favorite students called yesterday to say that she thought she had a swarm.  After some discussion, we decided her bees were robbing from some supers that are in storage.  In order to keep bees off of your equipment that is in "storage" you can put a lid or a piece of plywood on top of the boxes.  The idea is not to allow any insects inside the boxes from the top or bottom so if you have a queen excluder, you can place that underneath the stack of boxes and then cover the top.  Any holes in the boxes will attract robber bees and other insects so you can cover any holes with duct tape.

Currently Enrolling Students for Fall 2013 Science-Based Art Instruction!!

See Class List Below!

Read, Write, Publish! (3 spaces left) Mondays 9:30-11:30AM
Soar Through the Solar System (6 spaces left) Mondays 12-2PM
Human Body (5 spaces left) Tuesdays 12-2PM
Primary Science (Due to Popularity) (5 spaces left) Tuesdays 2:30 - 4:30PM
Primary Science (Full) Wednesdays 9:30 - 11:30PM
Literature-Based Art and Writing (7 spaces left) Time & Date to be announced
Creative/Essay Writing (5 spaces left) Wednesdays 12-2PM
Animal Kingdom (6 spaces left) Thursdays 9:30 - 11:30AM
Intermediate/High School Art (3 spaces left) Fridays 10:30AM-1:30PM
Marine Marvels (2 spaces left) Fridays 2-4PM

ALERT!! EARLY HONEYFLOW THIS SEASON!!

Today I checked two of my colonies to find the beginnings of a VERY early honeyflow.
This is the first time I've seen the swarm season and the honeyflow overlap!!
I removed about 10 swarm cells from each hive.
This weather is awesome and I love, love, love Alaska!!

Ventilation for Your Honeybees - Adding Honey Supers - Water

Besides doing a hive check every 10-12 days, assisting your bees with ventilation would be very helpful during this hot season!  To do this, simply lift your lid up and place a 10-penny nail diagonally across all four corners of the top box.  Be sure to remove the nails when it cools back off -(say 50-60*).  Those of us who have mostly drawn out comb can add supers now as the honeyflow may be early this season!!  I will not be using a queen excluder this season - no need if I cage the queen 21 days prior to harvesting honey.  Be sure to keep your water source available for your honeybees!

Currently Enrolling Students for Fall 2013 Classes! See Class List Below!

Read, Write, Publish! (3 spaces left) Mondays 9:30-11:30AM
Soar Through the Solar System (6 spaces left) Mondays 12-2PM
Human Body (5 spaces left) Tuesdays 12-2PM
Primary Science (Due to Popularity) (6 spaces left) Tuesdays 2:30 - 4:30PM
Primary Science  (1 space left) Wednesdays 9:30 - 11:30PM
Literature-Based Art and Writing (7 spaces left) Time & Date to be announced
Creative/Essay Writing (5 spaces left) Wednesdays 12-2PM
Animal Kingdom (6 spaces left) Thursdays 9:30 - 11:30AM
Botany (7 spaces left) Thursdays 12-2PM
Intermediate/High School Art (5 spaces left) Fridays 10:30AM-1:30PM
Marine Marvels (2 spaces left) Fridays 2-4PM

No Queen Excluder This Year!!!

After talking with a couple pioneer bee keepers, I have decided using a queen excluder is really not necessary.  In fact, it is probably quite counter-productive! You see, the excluder is a barrier to the bees as they rush to store their resources.  If you have used a queen excluder in the past you might remember the bees trying to seal all the holes with wax honeycomb.  They treat it as a ceiling!  Here's what I will be doing this season.  I will add my supers around the end of June with no queen excluder.  The queen will possibly lay eggs in the middle of the lowest super box which only entices the workers to store honey around the edges to insulate the babies.  Approximately 21 days before I wish to harvest honey, I will cage the queen.  The brood that was in the supers will hatch out and the bees will then fill those empty cells with honey.  Wa - la!  The frames will be ready to de-cap, and place in the extractor!

June Beekeeping Tips

June is notorious for swarms!  As long as I know my queen is healthy (plenty of eggs, larva, and pupa in large oval patterns in the center of several frames per hive box) I scrape out any swarm cells. 
After visiting several student hives this past week, I have found anywhere from two to several swarm cells per hive.  If you check your colony every 12 days and do this simple task of ridding your colony of swarm cells, you should have a great season!  When a swarm cell is allowed to fully develop, the queen that chews her way out of that cell tends to fly out of the hive which entices 30-70% of the colony to follow her to a new home.  If she is found by the existing queen before escaping the hive, they will fight, which can cause damage and death to one or possibly even both queens.  For those of you who still find more than four frames with no wax drawn-out yet, you need to keep feeding sugar water as this allows the bees to build much faster than having to obtain all the building resources from foraging flights.