![\"colony2\"](\"http:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/colony2-300x225.jpg\" "\\"colony2\\"")
![\"colony1\"](\"http:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/colony1-300x225.jpg\" "\\"colony1\\"")
<\/p>\nBeltane\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waning Flower Moon<\/p>\n
A new feature on ancientrails, the ancient trail of bee-keeping.\u00a0 This diary will serve as my record of work with my colonies and a way to review the year’s learnings and prepare for next year.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
From left to right is colony 1, the parent colony of bees started with a package a year ago.\u00a0 The parent colony has two honey supers on it now, the gray boxes, and a queen excluder which you can see as an unpainted strip of wood between the honey supers and the top hive box. The bottom hive box sits on a bottom board which rests on a leveled foundation, in this case bricks.\u00a0 Colony 2, with the silvery metal cover, is the hive box, painted gray, and an empty honey super covering a plastic pail of 1 to 1 sugar syrup.\u00a0 The green board underneath is the bottom board and the foundation in this and the next instance are a heavy plastic decking plank cut into small pieces.\u00a0 Colony 2 was the third hive box on the parent which I divided a week ago and to which I introduced a new Minnesota Hygienic Queen on Monday.\u00a0 The third box, with the copper top, which all the colonies will have eventually, is the colony started a two weeks ago from a 2 pound package of Minnesota Hygienics.\u00a0\u00a0 In the final frame I’m smoking the top hive box of the parent colony preparatory to an inspection of the frames.\u00a0 Kate took this picture last Monday and the other pictures were taken on May 1.<\/p>\n
Today I started by preparing the smoker, the metal object you can see in the picture with me.\u00a0 This has taken a long time for me to learn and I finally have found a way to ![\"colony3\"](\"http:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/colony3-300x225.jpg\" "\\"colony3\\"")
keep it working for the 30-45 minutes I need to do my inspections and whatever work I need to do.\u00a0 I now use hamster![\"mebee670050210\"](\"http:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/mebee670050210-300x225.jpg\" "\\"mebee670050210\\"")
bedding to start the fire, throw in some compressed wood pellets, pumping the bellows to create a flame and embers.\u00a0 Then I put in smoker fuel, a cotton product that I assume is leftover material from spinning cotton into thread.\u00a0 Once this has established itself I put on the suit, zip up the headpiece, cinch up the sleeves and put my pants into my socks.\u00a0 I learned this last one the hard way when that bee crawled up my pant leg and stung me on the butt.<\/p>\n
Each time you start work on a colony you smoke the entrance, which is to the back in the colony 1 photo and to the right side in 2 & 3.\u00a0 Then, each you time you lift something, like the top or a hive box you put smoke under the object you’re lifting before you take it completely off.\u00a0 The smoke calms the bees and, it just occurred to me, the beekeeper.\u00a0 Often when you crack a hive box you have to use a hive tool to break the propolis the bees use to seal up their hive.\u00a0 It’s a sticky, brownish substance that sets to a somewhat pliable but sturdy joiner.<\/p>\n
Each time you check the hives you look for several different things:\u00a0 swarm cells, which are really new queen cells indicating that a swarm is imminent, larvae which mean the current queen is at work and present–this is a situation bee-keepers call being queen right, disease, this one is tough for me since I’m not sure what I’m looking for and pest invasions like mice or ants. In addition to this general inspection there are also specific tasks related to each inspection since the goal is to disturb the hive as little as necessary while maintaining a good weather eye.<\/p>\n
Today<\/p>\n
Colony 1 (the parent colony with a year old queen):\u00a0 I checked the honey supers to see if they were full.\u00a0 They weren’t.\u00a0 Had they been I would have added two more.\u00a0 I also removed the queen excluder and checked a couple of frames in the top hive box and underneath it for swarm cells.\u00a0 After setting the top box on the ground, I did a similar inspection of the bottom hive box, then reversed the two by putting the top box on the bottom board and the bottom box on top of it.\u00a0 Queen excluder.\u00a0 Honey supers.\u00a0 Top board.\u00a0 Hive box cover.\u00a0 Done.<\/p>\n
I noticed pancake shaped cells constructed on top of the cells on the frame foundation.\u00a0 I have no idea what this means.\u00a0 I saw a few swarm cells and what looked like a large number of drones, fat bodied male bees.\u00a0 I also found larvae which meant colony 1 is still queen right.\u00a0 You can kill the queen during an inspection.\u00a0 That’s a buzz kill.\u00a0 Ha.\u00a0 If a colony is not queen right, it will not produce worker bees or honey.\u00a0 This is one of the reasons you stay out of the hives as much as possible.\u00a0 In addition, the bees know much more about being bees than you do.\u00a0 Let them handle it.<\/p>\n
Colony 2 (child of the parent with a few weeks old queen):\u00a0 There was pancake shaped cell structures in this colony, too.\u00a0 Again?\u00a0 I did see larvae here and an empty queen cage, so colony 2 is queen right.\u00a0 It looked to me like a lot of these guys were drones, too, but what do I know at this point?\u00a0 There were a lot of bees and they did look and sound crowded–a lot of buzzing–so I added a hive box with ten frames and foundations, left the original hive body on the bottom board and put the empty on top.\u00a0 Then I closed colony 2.<\/p>\n
Colony 3 (package with few weeks old queen):\u00a0 I lifted the copper hive cover, found the syrup pail still had plenty of syrup, smoked the hive box and lifted out a few frames.\u00a0 There are larvae and the\u00a0 beginning of the ovoid structure of brood, then pollen, then honey.\u00a0 The pollen patty has had little activity, but I left it in just in case they need it.\u00a0 After hiving a package, the population of the colony declines for the first 21 days as the queen lays and workers go out seeking pollen, many of whom will die.\u00a0 After the brood begins to hatch and the nectar flow begins in earnest, the population will ramp up.\u00a0 When 80% of the frames have brood, I’ll add another hive box on this colony.\u00a0 Both colony 2 and colony 3 have the same task this year, build a strong parent colony, three hive boxes, that will over winter and divide next May.<\/p>\n
Colony 1, if all things go well, should produce honey this year.\u00a0 Next year and from then on, again assuming things go well, we’ll always have two parent colonies producing honey and two child colonies in the process of becoming parents.<\/p>\n
Under any circumstances I go the Minnesota Hobby Beekeeper Association meeting on Tuesday, May 11th, and found what those pancake things are.\u00a0 Until the next entry in the bee diary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Beltane\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waning Flower Moon A new feature on ancientrails, the ancient trail of bee-keeping.\u00a0 This diary will serve as my record of work with my colonies and a way to review the year’s learnings and prepare for next year. From left to right is colony 1, the parent colony of bees started with a package … Continue reading Bee Diary: May 9, 2010<\/span>