Hello Fellow Beekeepers,
Jen and I checked all of our colonies on Friday, May 1st and at midnight we moved them out of our town house yard to several locations once most of the snow melted.
One of our Carniolan queens had disappeared (probably died) and I could tell by the size of the larva it had been about five days since she died. We purchased a Russian queen from Dale Lupton and hung the Russian queen cage between the middle frames, leaving the queen cage cap on for five days.
The reason you want to re-queen as soon as possible after a queen disappearing is that you don't want the worker bees to develop ovaries and start laying eggs. These eggs will always be unfertilized and therefore produce drones. It is the queen's pheromones that keep the workers from acquiring immature reproductive organs. Since the workers do not mate with drones, all of their offspring are unfertilized. On the other hand, you don't want to introduce a brand new queen to a colony without an "Acquaintance Period" when the colony develops a desire for the new queen. This is why we don't allow the queen to escape her cage for at least five to eight days after hanging her in a queenless colony.
The rest of the colonies were in great shape with nice brood patterns emerging. Here is an example of a healthy brood pattern:
By the way, Dale does have extra queens for sale if anyone needs one. 907-978-1455
We didn't add a second box on May 1st because the queen still had several frames to lay eggs on.
We did not fill up sugar feeders to ensure sugar water would not spill during the transport to other locations.
Moving Bee Hives:
We moved the colonies at midnight to ensure all the bees were in their clusters. We pushed the telescoping lid back to block the upper entrance so bees could not exit this entrance. Leaving the entrance reducer on the smallest setting, we stapled window screen over the bottom entrance so no bees could escape. Finally, we ratchet strapped the entire hive together and carried it to the back of a truck, driving the hives at least 5 miles away to ensure they wouldn't return to their original hiving location to find their colony and hive missing. (Bees can get confused if you move them more than a few feet or less than several miles because they return to their original geographical location and stay there in a cluster even without the safety of shelter. In spring temperatures, they can die due to exposure.
Once we arrived at a new location, the colonies were taken out of the truck bed and set on foundation bricks facing southeast for early and all day sun exposure. The screen was taken off and telescoping lid was pushed forward, allowing the bees to come and go out of the top entrance.
The next day, we went back to the new locations to top off sugar water and observe the colonies.
Increasing "BEE SPACE" May 9, 2020 Hive Checks
It appears Jack Frost has left town and hopefully for good until October!
Jen and I increased colony "bee space" by removing all
inner insulation, replacing it with frames. This gives the queen several thousand more wax cells to lay eggs in and ensures she doesn't run out of space for laying eggs. We changed entrance reducers to the medium setting and added second boxes at the bottom (called "bottom supering"). Then we pulled a couple frames of brood (eggs, larva, & pupa) from the original brood box to add to the center of the bottom box. This draws the workers and queen down into the new box. We will watch the weather and if Jack Frost pays another visit or temperatures get below 40* we will set the entrance reducer at the smallest setting.
Any frames with bare foundation will be sprayed with sugar water to entice the workers to get busy building honeycomb on the foundations.
Re-queening Update:
The cap on the new Russian queen was removed so workers will hopefully release her within the next couple days. A frame of eggs and larva was robbed from another colony and placed in the hive where the new Russian queen has been hanging for five days. This helps the workers to receive the new queen without killing her as she is "bringing brood" with her.
Outside insulation is still on the hive boxes and will remain probably until June 1, 2020.
Since all of our colonies have about 80% drawn out honeycomb, we gave the last sugar feeding today (5/9/2020) so when the dandelions arrive in full force, the bees will begin to forage for natural nectar.
This ensures our honey is made from nectar rather than processed sugarcane.
Beekeepers with little to no drawn-out combs must continue to feed sugar water until at least half of the frames are drawn-out with virgin wax. Sugar water is the most efficient source of energy for comb building. You don't want the bees to have to use natural nectar that they work so hard to forage for to build comb.
As long as we see eggs and larva in each hive we don't have to see the queen since young brood is most often evidence she is alive and well.
We will complete hive checks again on May 19th (every 10 days), making sure we see eggs, larva, pupa and adult bees of course. At that time we plan to remove sugar feeders, replacing them with two more frames.
By then, bees should have plenty of natural nectar and they already have lots of tree pollen to forage. Dandelion pollen is a bright yellow orange and Alaska Wild Rose provides a sweet grayish-green pollen.
June is the "swarming month" when most colonies try to create a new queen because outdoor temperatures make the bees think they will have time to divide their colony and produce enough brood before the honey flow the end of June through July. We humans know this is not possible in Alaska because our summer season is so short and the honey flow drops off rather abruptly the end of August as flowering periods of plants declines considerably. Some years we have an extended season when white and yellow clover bloom late in the season, however not every year.
As long as we see eggs and larva, we remove any queen cups and queen "supersedure" cells.
Queen Cup
Supersedure Cells (Pupa stage with Royal Jelly)
If we are able to enjoy prolific fireweed and clover into September without a frost and our colony management skills have been timely and successful, our honey yield will be great.
Happy beekeeping and stay safe out there!
