None of the campus hives survived the winter location on the Berm. It was decided to relocated the hives to a bit lower elevation perhaps more sheltered from the wind. The hives are located about 50 yards due west.
Hive Setup
Hive Split
Went back to officer Ed’s property and made another more complete split (009). I took the queen with this second split and a huge number of bees. I started the colony with 2 frames of old honey frames and 3 frames of empty polished brood frame. The the original colony was checked to make sure there are plenty of frames with eggs and larva of the correct age. This should stop the original colony from swarming any time soon. The queen was caged and will be released tomorrow.
Hive Splits – New Queen
Queen-less Split (026) started on March 14, mother colony (28-29) has emerged. We will check back in 2 week for eggs. This split made 2 adjoining queen cells which could not be separated. The unhatched queen appears to be intact and not killed yet. The unhatched second queen emerged.
New Queens
A couple of weeks have passed and the new queen has emerged. She is not yet mated but is out and about inside the hive. She will remove any other unhatched queens and will soon be mated. Once she is mated the queen will then be able to lay eggs and the colony will continue.
Hive Inspection
The Hive at Woody’s pond was opened and inspected. The hive numbers were very low and are a concern. The queen was found easily. There are eggs, larva and capped brood present. Also a large number of dead bees in the bottom of the hive. The last inspection I cleaned the bottom of the hive out, so these are all new deaths in the last 6 weeks. The hive may be getting too much wind. Sun is not a problem. I moved the entrance excluder to the other side as to maybe prevent wind from blowing directly on the brood.
Hive Splits
Officer Ed’s hive was inspected. This hive immediately showed a huge number of bees at the exterior. Upon inspection the both shallow brood boxes are packed full of bees. I took 3 frames of eggs, larva and brood away from the mother colony and put them into a 3 frame NUC (027). NOTE: the mother colony has shallow frames which have been put into a deep NUC. Move these bees to full as soon as there is a hatched queen.
Hive Splits – New Queen
Queen-less Split (001) started on March 14, mother colony (28-29) has emerged. We will check back in 2 week for eggs. This split made 2 adjoining queen cells which could not be separated. The unhatched queen appears to be intact and not killed yet. So this frame was cleared of all bees and moved into another split from the (28-29) mother colony. One frame of brood with nurse bees was taken from mother colony (28-29) and put into a 3 frame NUC box (026).
One frame of nurse bees from mother colony(28-29) was moved into the 3 Frame NUC box (026). The Single frame with the unhatched queen cell was added. Hopefully the unopened and undamaged queen cell still contains a viable queen. Otherwise we will combine this colony back with the mother colony or turn into a new split.
Hive Splits – New Queen
Queen-less Split (030) started on March 7, mother colony (28-29) has finally emerged. We will check back in 2 week for eggs. Mating flights may be delayed by a 2 day low temperature weather pattern that is starting 4 days from now. This queen was delayed by approximately 8 days from the normal expected queen rearing calendar. The delay was mostly observed in the time to begin the queen cell. Also may have been a 1-2 day delay in the queen gestational cycle while in the capped queen cell stage. We will see how the other 2 splits emerge which were created with a one week separation each.
Making Queens
Making a new colony is a very fun activity in the Spring. If left alone to their own actions, Honey Bee colonies will perform this action every spring in an attempt to make a genetic copy of their successful genes. When the bees do this on their own we call this behavior a “Swarm”. When beekeepers trigger this behavior manually, we call this a “Split”.
As a beekeeper we would rather perform a split manually and satisfy the honey bee’s instinctive desire to swarm. During a swarm, the beekeeper will loose over half of the colony to the swarm and may never see those bees again. In a swarm the original queen takes over half the hive out to find a new home somewhere far away. A beekeeper can prevent this behavior by performing splits.
A split is simply the act of opening up a hive and taking out 2-3 frames of brood and leaving behind the queen with the mother colony. Taking out frames of bee brood will slow the mother colony down and make them less likely to swarm.
The new split has tons of workers and brood at different stages of development. The worker bees will choose a larva at the correct stage of development and begin turning that larva into a queen. Thereby, in about 25 days, this new colony will have a mated queen ready to start laying eggs. The video below is following the worker bees create a queen cell and raise a new queen.
Clean Bees
Bees have evolved all different manners of behaviors which promote survival. One of those mechanisms is to keep the interior of the hive clean and Hygienic. We see hygiene being practiced by the overall colony and also on an individual level of the worker bee.
The colony as a whole will show clean behavior by never excreting any waste inside the hive. On nicer warm days usually in the afternoon, you will see bees coming out and performing cleansing flights. Basically, they will not go to the bathroom inside the hive. They will fly out and circle in front of the hive before they deposit their waste.
We see other cleanliness behavior in the role of the housekeeping bee. Bees move through different jobs inside the hive during their lifespan. One of those jobs is one of cleaning the inside of the hive. This involves cleaning debris and also carrying out the dead bees. Instinctively bees will fly out a distance from the hive in one last act before they die. However, if they die inside the hive, the cleaning bees will carry them out and deposit them in front of the hive.
Cleaning the hive and cleansing flights are all behavior which take energy and pose significant risk to the individual bee. But the long term survival of the colony is increased with this behavior.
Be careful, you might get pooped on. Do not worry, it is only pollen and nectar.
