Just Bees

I'm sensing a theme to my postings recently.....but it looks like things might have finally settled down on the bee front (fingers crossed).  The heat has been high over the past week, making manipulating top bars a bit risky (and *that* is how we've accidentally managed our first, small, honey harvest).

Yesterday's inspection was full of import, as it would tell us if we still had 'someone' laying, and what was going on with the 2 queen cells.  The bees have returned to a state of calm since the initial robbery and hive move, and I've been closely approaching the hive and watching them work (and deal with a very reduced entrance) over the past several days with no issues.

The emergency queen cell is still intact, and was covered with worker bees (their numbers enhanced by all of the brood from the Langstroth frame, which has hatched out completely). Careful examination, using a flashlight, showed that there were no eggs or larvae added to the comb this week. Our observations on Monday verified minimal larva that was three days old and more, with no evidence of eggs. Our thorough examination on Wednesday resulted in no visual of a queen, and we saw no evidence of a queen again.  It seems that we made a good call to leave the emergency cell where it was.  The potential swarm queen cell has been abandoned, and I saw no evidence of the larva that had initially caused me concern.

Given the information available, this queen should emerge today or tomorrow, perform her orientation flights, and mate within a week to ten days. She should begin laying within three days after mating.  We could have eggs laid in the brood chamber as early as next week, or as late as 17+ days from now. That 'late' calculation was why we waited so long to see results from our last queen, and then install a purchased queen - and that didn't work out either.

I'm hesitant to risk opening the hive again for the next while, to reduce the risk of killing the queen, or startling her into flight. The bees from our original colony will be nearing the end of their life-span now, and Jen's Langstroth workers are going to be hard-pressed to span the gap between now and the emergence of the new queen's worker brood ten days after being laid (2 1/2 weeks from now at least). A worker bee in summer can live to about a maximum of about 6 weeks. Here's to all the hard work going on inside that wooden hive body! And here's a view of their nearby pollen and nectar sources this morning:

Just in the backyard, there's borage still blooming in the garden, along with honeysuckle, roses, lavender, bergamot, vetch, trefoil (finally found that this annoying weed can feed rabbits *and* bees!), squash, cucumber, coriander, thyme, oregano and lemon balm (which I need to stop harvesting for the rabbits and allow to bloom).  Put a beehive in your yard - it's a good reason not to worry about the dandelions you have growing there.

Of Bees and Bunnies

Yesterday, we processed our two recent litters of rabbits, while taking some time to show friends how to put down a rabbit as quickly and humanely as possible, and what comes after.  My farming/beekeeping/font of knowledge friend Jen dropped by, having run to the post office to pick up a queen bee that had been mailed overnight from Vancouver Island, and shared some personal tips and tricks about rabbit butchering.  All of us chatted and had a few positive hours of preparing home-grown meat for the table. I think everyone learned a thing or two!

I took a moment to discuss with Jen how we had determined that we no longer had a queen in our hive, and that our colony was likely doomed - knowing that the current bees would die off with no replacements being reared.

A few minutes after cleaning up after ourselves that evening, I received a call letting me know that the replacement queen from the Island was available, since the 'queenless' hive she had been meant for in Jen's bee yard had managed to produce their own queen after all, and things were ticking along.

Adrian and I quickly decided to ask for the queen - and a little bit of help as well. 

So, this morning, Jen came over with the queen in a little cage the size of a tic tac container (shipped via Canada Post Expresspost), and a frame of capped brood from one of her Langstroth hives.....

We shifted all of the top bars over, to make as much room as we could at one end of the hive, and placed the wood pieces which previously held the sugar syrup feeder, so we had a bit of a platform.

 

 

Jen had brushed as many bees off of a brood frame as she could, and brought the frame over in a pillow case for transport. Unfortunately for the bees that hitched a ride, our colony identified and killed them as intruders. It was a bit gruesome to watch.

 

Removing two of the built up top bars gave us just enough room to squeak the Langstroth frame in on an angle, and allow it to remain upright. 

The removed top bars, started with new, unused comb, went on either side of the foreign brood, in an attempt to insulate the brood, and to give a bit more security - and possibly to lend a reassuring, familiar scent to the remainder of our colony.



The queen was duct-taped to one side of the brood from Jen's hive, and the second top bar placed in front of her to provide warmth and security, while the bees from our top bar learn to recognize her scent and release her from her cage by eating the candy cap at one end.

We covered this decidedly unconventional compromise with a burlap sack, before putting the lid back on the hive, and this evening I will go in to (hopefully) verify that 1. Our bees have not killed the new queen, and 2. That they are congregating around her protectively and feeding her while they accept her leadership.

 

Thank you Jen, and here's hoping that our emergency measures help our hive to regain its lost numbers.