Fall Is Upon Us

Wild Flowers in Chanhassen

Even though autumn does not arrive before September 23; the honey bees in Minnesota know better. They are preparing themselves for the long anticipated winter months by foraging the last drops of nectar, and grains of pollen that they will store for their future food supply. The days are getting shorter and so are the bees' "workday". Soon the temperature will decline, and so are their food sources.

As anticipated in the last few weeks, the Chanhassen apiary will not give us honey this year, due to the active swarming, resulting in two smaller but healthy colonies. These hives did not have the time to collect more for us. They were busy planing for themselves. Therefore we are getting the colonies ready to enter the cooler months. We are currently treating both hives with thyme to eliminate or decrease the Varroa mites population, and at the end of September as a prevention against Nosema ( a deadly bee microbe that affect the bee's nutrition and shorten their lifespan. A huge problem in Northern States) as a result we will give them some medicated heavy syrup. This time the syrup given will be 2:1, two times the amount of sugar per amount of water!...very syrupy indeed! This sugar water will help them in storing more food for the coming winter, and preventing a deadly fate . Usually two gallons per hive is sufficient.

The Shakopee apiary had its ups and downs. The Green Carniolan colony which lost 2 queens in a row, and got infected by mites soon after; had been challenging to keep alive the whole season. Its bee population is small, their store of honey is obviously small as well. I know that this type of honey bees go into the winter season as a smaller family than the Italian bees for instance, and thus need less food. However, I am very worried about their chance of survival. Nevertheless we will feed them with heavy syrup as well giving them all the chances they can get to pack food away for the meager days ahead. Obviously, this colony will not give us honey and has already been treated with thyme.

Our "champion" colony this year has to be the Purple Italian colony which decided to be very prolific in mid-June and there after. We saw an "explosion" pop corn-like of bees overflowing each of the 3 hive bodies; it was very impressive. The queen is a good egg- layer. She gave us good workers who labor hard all season. Therefore, the Italian honey bees have plenty of food for themselves and more! This extra honey which is located in the super (top smaller box) is for us to take! I have to mention that it is very rare indeed to get honey for our own consumption the first year of beekeeping. Usually during the first year, the bees are very busy building combs with wax ,taking care of the young and gathering food for the winter months. This exercise requires an enormous amount of energy and work from the little honey bees. We are very pleased with them to say the least.

Tomorrow (Wed. Sept.1st.) is the last "warm" day of the week predicted here, so we will pick up our honey supers...we think we will have 2, and we will extract the golden liquid from the frames, and bottle it this weekend.

Then I will give them some thyme medication for 4 weeks. After that period, the honey bees will also have a couple of gallons of heavy medicated syrup. This colony has the best chance to come through the winter and spring, it has all the quality of a good hive: heavy healthy bee population, lots of food and a prolific queen.

A Quick Visit in Shakopee

We visited our honey bees in Shakopee August 16, 2010. The purple Italian colony is still busy collecting nectar from the late blooms. We have for sure one super and a half of honey which we will extract during the first week of September. This is a little treasure to us, as normally the first year of starting colonies, the bees are busy working for themselves to establish a strong colony with pollen and honey for them to eat during the winter. We are happy that they made a surplus!

The green Carniolan colony is smaller with only 2 large boxes. They are finishing their Apiguard medication this weekend. It is said that these bees will have a smaller population and thus a smaller reserve of honey to eat during the winter. In addition, they are known to be great survivors of winters... I guess we will have to see in the spring.

In Chanhassen, I have nothing to report this week. I am just hoping that by removing the queen excluder (screen), the bees will start drawing combs in the super, and collecting a little nectar. If not that's fine...it will have been a bonus for us! However, we are monitoring for signs of swarming as it can happen again.

Good news. We received our honey extractor! Ben put it together. We can't wait to use it!

Better "BEE" Safe than Sorry

August 11, 2010. Ben and I did a quick inspection at the Chanhassen apiary. We decided to look into the original colony with the new queen, to make sure nothing was brewing.

This colony has a tendency to swarm for no apparent reason, therefore checking a little bit more often, and removing supersedure cells ( peanut-like cells located in the upper third of a frame) which are build by workers if they feel that their queen is not performing well. It is an indication that the colony is ready to replace the queen.

We were also looking for swarm cells, also peanut shaped cells but they are located along the bottom third of a frame. Workers create this type of cells to raise a new queen in preparation for the act of swarming.

We are happy to report that we saw nothing of the sort! They seem content were they are and so do we! Better be safe than sorry!

Sharing a Little bit of Knowlege...priceless!

Sunday August 8, I inspected the "swarmed/old queen" colony in Chanhassen. A dear friend of mine joined me in this endeavor. With our veils and bee suits tightly zipped up, hive tool, smoker and reading glasses ready we proceeded to inspect the hive. The honey bees were gentle and calm, as I was explaining what I was doing. I really enjoy showing and telling people about bees; they are so fascinating to me.

We were very lucky that day indeed; everything that could be seen in a hive...We saw! The drones with their big eyes, the busy workers gathering pollen and nectar, and even the blue queen. Eggs, and different stages of larvae have been observed using our reading glasses and the magnifier! I showed her brood, pollen, nectar and honey on frames. As I was explaining , my friend was asking more and more questions... we were like two kids discovering! I was so happy to share my bees and their life, and why they are so important to us. She also took the time to listen to the soothing buzzing of the hive. The colony is well, busy and healthy. And this is good and appreciated. I have hope again for this hive.

We were hot and completely drenched as the temperature was already 92F (33C). But it did not matter, we were together, happy watching the honey bees.

Before closing the colony, I told my friend to unzip her veil and to dip her finger on the frame to taste the golden honey. Her face lit up with a huge smile... the honey was warm and sweet like nothing she had ever tasted before. I grinned back telling her that I was happy she had come.

This day is something she will not forget, and I was delighted to share something dear to me with her.

A little Report

As we all embrace August, the honey bees are still busy and alive! The last 10 days have been hot and humid , and I wonder if this weather is affecting the bees.

Shakopee Apiary:

Green Hive

Today, we did not locate the queen, but her egg laying pattern is less than ideal. It is rather random and mediocre. We saw eggs but they are "spotty", seen here and there and not as a beautiful mass. Of course, this colony is being treated for V. mites , and the warm and humid temperature might not be optimal for anyone to work properly. Otherwise, we can see that they are working at building combs and gathering pollen and nectar, but at a very slow pace. I will go back Saturday to replace the medication and put another tray of thymol for another 2 weeks, then the treatment will be completed. We really want those Carniolan bees to survive and come back stronger next spring. I hope our TLC will work.

Purple Hive

I don't want to jinx ourselves but this Italian colony is doing fantastic. It is still overflowing with honey bees. When we open the hive, it looks like a soup that is over boiling, bees are spilling over board. It is very intense. The queen is doing an excellent job laying eggs in a beautiful, solid pattern. Today, we wanted to do a full inspection (looking at every frames in all boxes) but they were a little annoyed with us. They are working very hard for us now. They have started to build white combs in the second super, and they have an enormous reserve of honey for themselves. I noticed few Varroa mites. We will treat the entire colony AFTER harvesting the honey.

Chanhassen Apiary:

We only inspected the Green original colony with the new queen. We are keeping a very close eye on it. We do not want another swarming event.

We saw the queen, painted blue (she looks like a smurf!) She looked fine and busy crawling on the frame. There were eggs, the pattern is nice and uniform. However, I feel that I should see more eggs. The colony's population is still moderate. I also saw some Varroa mites. We will treat in the fall after the potential honey harvest. They seem a little slow to build combs in their only super. However in their defence, they still have room in their "living quarter" to store pollen, nectar and honey. Hopefully they will give us some honey this year.

The swarmed colony with the old queen will be inspected Sunday with a friend of mine. I hope to show her a good healthy hive.