[susan rudnicki]

Great!! I always like to hear when students have extra equipment at the ready! See you Sunday S.

[susan rudnicki]

“I know that you are somewhat against requeening a hive in our backwards beekeeping–” Actually, this is not quite correct. I am against BUYING breeder queens. Genetically manipulated queens often come from treated stock and therefore are dependent on consistent meds.

[susan rudnicki]

Hi, Eric—-again, your hive has not been managed in months, so that is a issue from the perspective of management. I watched the video, but these guys may not be managing on the same timing as you have. Personally, I don’t bang around the boxes and covers like that either. The reason I am somewhat skeptical about the behavior is I am often told hives are ferocious and I arrive to do work with them and find things turn out to be different. The best response is, to have a mentor work with you. I assume you have not had one, though you say the hive has been with you almost 2 years.
Another thing that would set them back a notch—do a split. (you don’t have good insurance with just one hive anyway) You have 2 brood boxes and two honey boxes. Put #1 and a honey box on a bottom board, #2 and the other honey box on another bottom board. Set them up next to each other. (read up on splits in MB’s book) After a day, switch the positions of the hives, so the incoming population of foragers equalizes. Open them up in a few days and look for queen cells.

[susan rudnicki]

Eric—if I remember your remark, these bees have had no intervention since November, or 3-4 months. This is too long and they definitely do not know you. They have been crowded and sounds like they have a full honey nest above the brood nest, which will initiate swarming. (please read about this on Michael Bush’s site) You may have a hot hive, but other things could be done before you throw them over.
Did you cover the boxes that you set aside to do the other work? Since you were working in the brood boxes, the others don’t need to be sitting there in the light, causing more chaos.
Also, (and this is a common mistake, I have made it, too) it is easy to not see if the so-called “honey supers” have a few patches of drone brood, a common situation at this time of year. Nurse bees WILL NOT leave the brood for any reason, sticking like they are glued even when you try to dislodge them. Every frame must be seen to verify there are no brood within. Looking up from below, you can often see Drone Brood by the way they protrude from the face of the combs.
Another calming strategy is to put a empty box with frames under the two boxes you are describing in pos. 4 and 5. This gives them more room to “roost” and can make inspecting those 2 boxes more easy next time.
Finally, have you ever had a on-site mentoring lesson? Our meeting on Sunday will be partly concerned with helping newbees pair up. It sounds to me like you really should have one now. Only so much can be done by oneself, and you say you have had the hive a year.

[susan rudnicki]

Yeah, Tautz quantifies that TOO !

[susan rudnicki]

Since you have just 2 meds for the brood chamber, you may be needing to move 3 or 4 frames up into the next medium you add. If the two brood boxes are filled out, they need encouragement to move up or your hive could swarm. You are seeing all those drones because this is the Spring build-up period when bees are getting ready to swarm and disperse their genetics. Check for the density of the brood nest and move up 3 or 4 frames of brood from below into the new box. Sandwich the new brood frames with honey frames taken from below. Put in empty frames where you took brood frames. Don’t put two empties together, but interleaved with built out frames.

[susan rudnicki]

Also, I forgot to mention, the upcoming meeting on Feb 28 is a must do for all HL beeks!

[susan rudnicki]

Hi, Eric—I remember you. I would emphasize the need to understand the timing of development for all 3 castes of bees in the hive–workers, drones, queens— and Michael Bush has organized this very well for us here–
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesmath.htm He has examples on the same page of how this knowledge helps you understand and predict issues that may be occurring.
Reading his book thoroughly for issues related to queen supercedure and swarming will go a long way to helping you understand your posted question.
Inspecting a hive is not done only in the presence of a flow or not. You are inspecting to check on the viability of the queen and her presence. You are looking for EGGS and open brood, not the Queen herself. Your inspections, Jan to October–are too far apart to prevent crowding if the brood nest becomes honey bound. They may have swarmed since folks often miss the signs of a swarm trajectory when inspections during the build-up are that far apart. I would never go from November to the end of February without a inspection, especially on a hive with just 2 mediums for the brood nest. (this is equal to just one deep) Newbees often miss swarm cells and certainly miss the placement of supercedure cells—both instances due to the thick coating of bees on the frame. I am surmising that your colony is pissy due to crowding, and not working with them much. Also, you do not say what time of day you chose to work. Warm, calm, middle of the day when most of the foragers are out is best. Another issue—people start inspecting in the top box, smoking and driving bees into the bottom spaces where they become even more crowded as the foragers return to add to the population. I advise taking each box off, put a cover or towel over it to keep them in the dark and START with the bottom box first.
Finally, are you keeping records of dates, what you observe and manipulations? You will help yourself to record where they have been, where they are now, and where you predict they are headed, as a colony. I find a LOT of beeks rely on fuzzy memory and this is not going to help in assessing issues or learning more efficiently. Education in this craft can never be called complete—keep reading, join bee chat groups, come to meetings. Rob gave a GREAT presentation on “Bee Sex” last month that would have helped you in the current question.

[susan rudnicki]

JUles—I have posted a helpful resource for you under another heading on this Forum. Reporting is very important, testing is a your choice. I see you have had bees a long time ( assume just one hive) but are not a HL member? How did you reach out to our community? Do you belong to another club? You should know, most of the folks belonging to HL are keeping bees illegally. Now with the new bee code for Los Angeles City, some are legal, but a lot are not. It would be helpful for both your own education and our work if you become a dues paying member. We often get calls for help when things are going south but it is not the most helpful relationship for either party.

[susan rudnicki]

Hey, Jules—I am the Forum moderator, Susan. You must have not seen my post on the Dec 8, 2015 Forum. I had a massive pesticide kill—go back and look at the photos and write-up. This stuff happens because we can not control the miles of territory our bees cover in foraging for pollen and honey. Vector control sprays for mosquitos, people spray or drench the soils of garden plants with pesticides, toxics are in gutter water that bees may be drinking from—there’s no telling where the poisons are located.
Bees in a situation like this can’t make any brood—they need a Queen. They don’t have enough population to properly care for any brood anyway, which is why all the brood in the hive is fated to expire. They don’t have a workforce to collect food or guard the hive. Wax moths and SHB are going to come in and start decomposing or robbers will come in to grab what is left of the honey. It is dicey as to whether a swarm would move in soon enough to prevent the decomposition process to be arrested. The frames should be extracted of honey or put on a functioning hive so the honey can be saved. The brood frames can be put down for chickens—they love capped brood—or put on a strong hive where the dead brood will get cleaned out and the comb re-used. The question remains—if there are residual toxins in the frames or not. I will say, the poisoned hives I had recovered and a pollen sample submitted to the USDA, testing for 144 chemical residues, turned up “not detectable” levels of residues for every tested chemical on the report they sent back to me. It was a expensive testing and revealed nothing.

[susan rudnicki]

I have a better link—go to this FB page for the Pollinator Stewardship Council, click the link in the first big box—http://pollinatorstewardship.org/?p=4076
A page will open with the model letter down at the bottom for you to cut and paste. Add some remarks of your own related to your feelings as a beekeeper. Go to the link for regulations.Gov and your copy/paste letter can be submitted against this powerful pesticide Thanks

• This reply was modified 10 years, 4 months ago by Chelsea McFarland.

[susan rudnicki]

Sorry—I don’t know how to make the links work—going to consult Ceebs—please follow up!! susan

[susan rudnicki]

Hi, most nights after 8 pm are good. Wanna call tonight? S.

[susan rudnicki]

Hi, Chuck—have we spoken before? I have done what you propose—-we need to speak by phone. I live in Manhattan Beach. Where are you? Here’s my phone (NO cell phone) 310-374-4779 Susan

[susan rudnicki]

Nan—I might have mistaken your remark here, eh? Maybe you meant the wire and posts holding up the bees and all their honey/brood?

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