Bee Escapes

Today I put the Bee Escapes on to prepare for the harvest this weekend. I've really gotten this process down now, putting the escapes on 3 or 4 days before gives plenty of time for the bees to drain out of the honey supers so that taking the frames for harvesting is a very speedy process. I haven't had any issues with pests moving in during that time.

Maker Faire Presentation Details

Details about my Backyard Beekeeping presentation have been posted on the Maker Fair Website! Check it out: Backyard Beekeeping

My talk is at 2:30pm on Saturday, May 17th. Come check it out!

Bee Building

I figure its about time I start building some of my own equipment. I already assemble all of my equipment by buying un-assembled hive bodies from Mann Lake. In order to make the cuts for a hive body, we would need a router, so those will have to wait a while longer.

I designed plans for both types of hive stand that we use - the 18 inch stands to keep the bees off of the ground, and the stands immediately under the bottom boards with the little ramps. I always make my happy husband helper, Brandon, cut the wood for me. I'm a bit squeamish about using the chop saw - I always think of my Dad saying "Look, Ma! No hands!" with his hands tucked into his sleeves, ha!

I guess I was feeling courageous today, so here I am cutting the wood for another hive stand:

Success! I still have 2 hands with 10 fingers!

Split Success!

Hooray! Today I checked in on the little split, and they have brood, eggs and larvae! Check it out:

I'm so happy this little hive has successfully raised its own queen. Since I didn't remove half of the bees, it seems like the yellow hive still swarmed, but it's good to know that I gave this little hive enough resources to produce their own queen. I didn't feed the split sugar water at all during the entire process, which was probably a bit of a gamble since we are in such a drought year. I did provide them with capped honey from the original hive though.

These guys have about 4 drawn frames right now, I bet I have about a month before I need to add another box. I never intended to keep this hive, so I'll need to sell them in the next month before they get too big to transport.

Anyone looking to buy a beehive? :)

Beeswax Molds

I just got some great little 1 ounce beeswax molds! Before this I was using a "brownie bite" silicon tray to make wax bricks, but these are just adorable:

Little Visitors

Today I had my littlest visitors! Brynn and Cavan (along with their parents/our friends Tiffany and Justin) came over to take a peek at the bees.

Tiffany suited up to help me lift supers and inspect the hives. We ended up seeing a lot of honey and a little bit of capped brood. I suspect that all three hives may have swarmed at some point in the last two months, so there were no baby bees to be seen.

I took a gamble and opened the new little hive to see if there were any eggs yet. The little white hive is the hive that I split from the yellow hive, these bees will have to raise their own queen now. There were no eggs yet, but lots of pollen and nectar coming in. There were no queen cells, and no eggs or larvae. This is not a bad sign yet - if this new little hive has successfully raised their own queen, she would have hatched by now, hence no queen cells. However it is still very early for the queen to be laying eggs, so I'll have to check again in the next few weeks.

Coming Soon - Maker Faire

I just learned that my Backyard Beekeeping talk has been accepted at Maker Faire Bay Area! How exciting! I do not know whether I will be presenting on Saturday, May 17th or Sunday, May 18th, I will update later with the details.

Drone Culling, Orientation Flights, and Split Update

Tonight I attended a Beekeepers' Guild of San Mateo monthly meeting where Serge Labesque was speaking. Serge is a great speaker, and even though I've been beekeeping for 3+ years now, I always learn so much whenever I attend his lectures.

On March 30th, I noticed that there were dead drones and drone larvae in front of the green (Mint) hive:

This was only in front of the Mint hive, none of the others... I wasn't sure what to think because there were no real signs of illness. During Serge's talk, he mentioned that during times of derth (little to no honey flow), the bees will kill the drones. We've been experiencing a drought over the past few years, this year is looking even worse than last year. I harvested the most honey from this hive a little over a week ago, so perhaps I created a food shortage for this hive.

Another thing that I was a little alarmed by was the unusually high activity in the afternoon:

It's not a very long video, nor is it very close (because of the high activity). I put on my suit and also snapped a few pictures:

Serge said that this sort of activity could be an "Orientation Flight", when young bees go outside and hover. This is how they get their bearings before going out into the world.

My last update is about the split. I think I may have done it a little wrong. I should have taken about 50% of the brood/bees from the yellow hive and moved it into the new hive. This will trick them into thinking that they swarmed. I moved 25% of the brood and bees at best. I also should have checked in at the 4-6 day mark to check that the new hive was building queen cells. Right now I'm at about the 12 day mark. At 16 days, the new queen will hatch. I should probably wait 2 more weeks before checking on the new hive.