The Mysterious Loss of a Colony

September 23, 2011 .

 As I report today on the first day of autumn, I have witnessed the loss of a colony in less than 3 weeks. It is very puzzling because this green little hive gave us a good super of honey this year,  about 40 lb.  This hive, Chanhassen #1 was "born" on April 20 2010 and was still a strong hive on August 27, 2011. Everything was perfect all summer, good brood pattern, lots of eggs, good queen, happy hive.

This is the hive we moved a few feet away to expose it to more sunshine. This is the hive which its occupants stung Ben 25 times! We know it was alive and well! How did it just die without a fuss, without giving us hints?

To be honest I had noticed some weeks ago,  few honeybees with deformed wings but not enough to get alarmed. This happens in nature, and it is usually taken care of by the honeybees themselves; they remove diseased bees, pushing them out of the colony. Furthermore, I did not see any mites which can lead to diseases or viruses. A puzzle of grand proportion.

A  weekend ago (Sept. 11) , Liz a friend came along to help us with our weekly honey bees' chores and like us she saw with sadness the pillage occurring. Many yellow jackets , paper wasps and bald-faced hornets were trying to get into the hive, attracted by the honey accumulated and robbing it. The small contingent of honeybees seemed powerless to defend themselves. They were however fighting fearlessly, dying to prevent the intruders to come in. Many died fighting, their cadavers were scattered in front of the colony. It was a very gloomy scene.

I needed to see more, I proceeded to open the hive to find a small amount of bees 200-300 many of them having deformed wings (DW). There is a virus called "deformed wing virus" that is vectored by the vireo mites, but I could not see any. Still a mystery....

I took a frame of dead brood with a few half emerged bees on it, as if no one was there to help them come to the world. I kept saying how sad it was to see this. The words in my head were echoing...how could  that be possible, that fast with no warning signs that I could have seen? It was devastating.  After a few minutes, I got out of my torpor and decided to do something about it. I could not save the colony but I could try to find out what had happened. I collected  few dead honeybees, and put everything in plastic bags. I also kept the doomed frame. In addition, even if  I knew the colony would not survive I could not let the invaders kill them mercilessly. I decided to close all the possible entrances with cork plugs and make the tiniest opening as I could for the honeybees to get into their hive, a safe place. I thought that at least they would die inside among their precious honey, and among themselves.

Now that I had regain some mental strength, I made the decision to bring all my specimen to the University of Minnesota and  have them analysed. I have to know what happened. Judy ( A PhD entomology student at the U) and I will take a look together using her expertise and the tools available to us in our lab. We will  try to solve this enigma. Someone has to know what happened to that colony.  I really hope to have answers soon.

In the meantime, I am feeding the rest of the colonies with heavy Syrup 2:1. This helps them as the winter is coming soon, and the nectar available is very scarce. Plants are drying, and pollen is reduced. We help our bees the best we can, and know. It is always difficult to lose a colony but maybe we will learn something that will make us better beekeepers. You see I love my bees.

Honeybees with deformed wings

Honeybee with deformed wings

Yellow Jacket (vespula)

  

Paper wasp (Polistes)

Bald-faced hornet (D. maculata)

   

The Golden Harvest

Saturday September 10, 2011
Honey: Vintage 2011

Our friends Lori and Ken had lost their colony last fall. They decided to try again this year and to their amazement, their bees rewarded them with 2 supers!

Lori and Ken working hard...Ben directing!

Yes, the honey is being extracted!

It took 4 hours to extract 2 supers...we knew Ben and I were going to "live" in the garage the whole weekend. Lori and Ken left around 2pm . Happy to have collected some honey and wax. 

Then came our turn, we never stopped the extractor since 10:30am...we finished (Ben did) at midnight, taking 30 minutes for lunch and dinner! 

Ben using a hot knife to open the capped honey

At an angle the hot knife slice the wax, revealing the honey

Ben place the frame inside the extractor, all cells are open(no more wax covering)

The extractor is full: 9 frames at once! and electric too this year!

Sweet pure honey

You must wonder where do I fit in that extraction day... Well I was busy taking pictures, bringing coffee, diet coke and such. And oh reading in a chair, watching the whole operation! The best was that I was with Ben doing what I love...being with him:) 

Our total honey for this year 2011: 160 lb. Average moisture content: 18.9 %

We are happy, our honeybees worked hard and we love them...what a sweet, sweet reward! Next bottling the precious gold liquid at the end of the month.

The collection

September 9, 2011

Karine brushing the frames

Ben and I collected all our supers (surplus honey) on Friday September 9th. To make the honeybees go down into the hive , we use a natural spray smelling like almond...the bees apparently don't like that very strong odor. However, we still had to remove few tenacious bees on each frames using a soft brush.

The Burley to transport the supers

In shakopee we had to carry the 40 pounds+ boxes full of honey. Our hives are about a football field from our car! Ben had a wonderful idea to bring the Burley along. We use to bike with the kids all the time, so they were inside taking naps!)

Ben "tasting" our  2011 Honey

It was easier in Chanhassen because the access to the apiary is maintained and the distance to walk shorter. And It is  a good thing; this is where we got the most honey! when we harvest honey, we do not disturb the bees. We only "take" the boxes that are on top of the hive, thus not opening the brood nest, or their own "reserve".

Our Garage-Honey-House

We brought everything back home and our garage was set up as a honey house (one day I will have a real one). It smelled so good, I told Ben that if this is what a bee smells from a flower; I know understand why they are attracted to those sweet aromas.




     We stacked the supers...we had a huge tower this year!  
The day was done, we were ready for tomorrow. What a good feeling. All our efforts are going to be rewarded :)

A stinging Lesson

Sunday September 4, 2011

2 hives on the left to be moved 15 feet to the right...simple!

It was a perfect beautiful day, sunny with a light breeze.  Ben and I had noticed earlier in the season that  our 2 older hives in Chanhassen were in the shade to much during the day, as a result the honey production seemed low compared to our packaged hive and our split. 

Ben making a little spot in the goldenrods for our hives

New location ready for hives

So yesterday, we decided to move them about 15 feet from their original point. First Ben weed whacked a section of goldenrods, then we put down some weed fabric and spread a good 2-4 inches of mulch. We racked around the hives, and re-used the fabric and older mulch. We did all that work without our bee suits, the bees were flying from their entrances towards the sun, working hard bringing back pollen and nectar.





That same evening, we decided to go ahead and move the colonies. My first thought was that it would be easy and simple. I also said that we might not need our bee-suits because the bees seemed so gentle and busy with their own thing. But Ben thought that we should wear our suits and veils. Nicolas came with us to help. As a good beekeeper, I loaded the car with all our "bee things" including the smoker.

We drove to Chanhassen, and walked to the hives in question. Without smoking them (because they were inside their hive, we thought they (and we) will be fine) I removed the outer cover top, and proceeded to remove every box until the hive stand was cleared. The bees seemed annoyed, but we were still ok. Suddenly Nicolas got stung 3 times and ran away from the scene, which was a good thing. Ben and I started moving the equipment few feet away. The honeybees were now furious, I tried to start the smoker but we had forgotten the newspaper in the car! Nicolas ran to the car, and at about the same time  Ben got stung few times on his ankles, knee and hands but not before moving the hive into its new location. Only then, he moved away from the hives while I was still trying to get the smoker started; in the  commotion my bottle of matches spilled on the wet grass, and could lit nothing at all! Finally, I moved toward  Ben who was still dealing with the stinging bees, removing his shoes and slapping himself. After few minutes, the situation calmed down but Ben had been stung 25 times mostly on his feet/ankles and Nicolas 3 times. Thankfully everyone were wearing their suits and veils. Ben finally got the smoker ready, and we continued to move the second hive...without a glitch. This one was fine and calm.  We were happy and relieved that we were done for the night.

Nicolas and Ben with the colonies at their new site

PS: we were going to move a colony from Shakoppe to a new property using my car! yes, we were going to go at dusk and put the hive in the car and drive. That was such a great plan! However when Ben and I woke up the next morning...our first thought was... WE ARE NOT GOING TO PUT THE HIVE IN OUR CAR, NO WAY! I guess we did learn a lesson after all:)
PPS: Ben and Nicolas are fine and still love bees.