waggledancers

I made a bumblebee nest box a couple of years back, based on plans that I saw here: (link). Supposedly it's not especially likely that a queen bee will actually find the box, although it can happen... well it hadn't happened for me for the last two years. I had read that if you don't get a bee to set up a nest in the box that you can try to capture one and put it in... and I had the opportunity to safely (for her and for me) capture one, as I saw a queen poking around in some leaves by my garage (possibly either looking for a place to set up a nest or maintaining a nest that I'd only just now noticed). I scooped her up in a jar and put her in my bee box.

It's hard to know for sure if she liked it or not, but she stayed in there for nearly an hour before flying out.

Here's her coming out. (photos by my wife)

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After she came out, she did a small loop around the box:

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and then a larger loop around the area before she flew off:

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She was definitely orienting herself, and may come back, but we won't know for sure until we see further comings and goings at the box. I hope we get some bumblebees this year!

Yesterday I was musing about making a topbar hive that was the same dimensions as a langstroth hive (sometimes known as the "standard hive" -- the typical rectangular box), so that a langstroth honey super could be placed on top of it or you could put topbars with comb into a langstroth box if for some reason you felt like doing so. Well, my coworker Ryan is quite handy with woodworking and voila yesterday's dream is a reality!


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(sorry for the bad picture quality)
(also I realize that is not a honey super but a deep brood box..it was what I had at hand when I took the picture five minutes ago (: )



In other beekeeping related news, I've created and uploaded a whole bunch of various people's pictures up on the Orange County Beekeepers Association flickr account. The pictures make the club look positively fun! ;D

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The Alluring And Alien Sights Of A Bee In Ultra Close-up, from Discover Magazine. Some really cool electron microscope shots of the bee.

Current Location: Los Angeles, CA
Current Mood: 👁 cheerful
cheerful

Bee-ware - bees use warning buzz to refute the waggle dance.

 Hi o/

Firstly, if this is agianst the rules then I apologise and expect to be deleted.

I am trying to start a community to help people do all kinds of things for themsleves, anything from making clothes and beauty products to just fixing furnature. A place for exchanging tips and asking questions. I think this would work particually well on LJ but only if we get a lot of members. As of now, I have none.

Bee Keeping = awesome so come and tell us where to start.

If you have any usefull skills (you do, come on) or you would just like to learn to do more for yourself then come join and get posting. 

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learn_diy 

Hope to see you soon. 

Stroop 

Poking around at the entrance of the hive this morning I watched the girls drag one of their brothers out and dump him off the edge of the hive stand. He appeared to be newly hatched, covered in that downy fuzz but upon closer inspection I noticed that he was also sporting a reviled hitchhiker - a varroa mite.

This is the first time I've ever seen one outside of a photograph. Since hiving the colony in early May I've obviously never seen them attached to any of the workers as they come and go, on any brood, on the any of the comb, or in the hive at all (including at my inspection just last week). Earlier this month I had also noticed a few (and I mean less than a dozen) small hive beetles in my hive-top feeder, and only in my hive-top feeder (two on one day, one on another, a couple after a few days, etc) which were dispatched under my thumb upon their discovery. Knock gently, I haven't seen any more of those hive monsters in over a week.

Whereas I'm pretty discouraged, I'm reserving the freak-out for better information. I bought my packaged bees, and marked mated queen from Walter T Kelley's bees and I was informed at the time of purchase that they never medicate their bees, which is a practice I'd like to continue if possible. Based on this information I have to assume that varroa has been a part of my hive since its inception. I'm going to take a sugar shake test today or tomorrow and, as soon as possible, introduce a drone brood frame and a screened bottom board. But I'm thinking that it's probably time to, begrudgingly, put in an order for Apistan and Apiguard as well.

Any advice with the use of these products, as well as, any more seasoned beek than I who's had luck controlling mites and other pestilence using strictly natural methods and would like share their wisdom would be greatly appreciated.

Your's, best, and as usual. . .
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thanx_n_advance

Current Location: United States, Virginia, Front Royal
Current Mood: 👁 blah
discouraged

Honey Bees Turned Data Collectors Help Scientists Understand Climate Change

An excerpt:

"When honey bees search for honey, colony scouts tend to scour far and wide and sample the area around a hive remarkably evenly, regardless of the size of the hive. And that, Esaias explained, means they excel in keeping tabs on the dynamics of flowering ecosystems in ways that even a small army of graduate students can not.

The key piece of data bees collect relates to the nectar flow, which in the mid-Atlantic region tends to come in a burst in the spring. Major nectar flows, typically caused by blooms of tulip-poplar and black locust trees, leave an unmistakable fingerprint on beehives -- a rapid increase in hive weight sometimes exceeding 20 pounds per day. When a nectar flow finishes, the opposite is true: hives start to lose weight, sometimes by as much as a pound a day.

By creating a burgeoning network of citizen scientists who use industrial-sized scales to weigh their hives each day -- HoneyBeeNet -- Esaias aims to quantify the dynamics of nectar flow over time. Participating beekeepers send their data to Esaias who analyzes it, and posts nectar flow trend graphs and other environmental data for each collection site on HoneyBeeNet's webpage."

So I was outside with my youngest child. While he rode his tricycle, I was working on a wood project. Mainly I was just sanding down some wood to prep it for giving it a coat of polyurethane.

( Cut for length and pictures.Collapse )

EDIT: The pics should work now.

I've just had the most awful beekeeping day. I share a hive with a partner, and on Tuesday we put a bee escape on our super, with the plan to get the bees out of the super before extracting yummy honey today. We first got a hive last August, so we've spent a long time waiting for this day.

We lifted off the roof expecting to see a super full of honey and (hopefully) no bees. Instead we found a few bees and a super completely stripped of honey. Instead of the frames of beautiful capped white honey we had just two days before, we had empty comb, the cell walls destroyed and broken, a thick sprinkling of wax particles lying on the board below. Words cannot describe how we felt.

On inspection of the roof we found a small hole where bees and wasps were managing to get in, and noticed a couple pushing their way through. The entire super had been robbed since Tuesday. It's probably obvious that we should have checked for holes before, but being inexperienced we didn't think of it. All I can say is, check your roof for holes! Don't do what we did and lose all your honey!

bad news :(

HAMDEN, Conn. - Connecticut scientists say nearly half the state's 2,600 registered beehives are infected with bacteria that cause a disease that kills honeybee larvae.

Entomologists and microbiologists at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station say 10 percent of registered hives have a serious level of infection by the American foulbrood bacteria.

Scientists say another 40 percent of hives have low levels of the bacteria in their brood chambers, where eggs develop into adults. They say the findings are troubling because the disease can kill entire bee colonies in a matter of weeks.

A beekeeping acquaintence of mine had a hive that succumbed to foulbrood.. her other hive (a few feet away) seemed fine.

I don't have it (yet, knock wood!) but are there any preventatives I can use? I know terramycin is used to prevent foulbrood... has anyone had this problem?