What Am I Seeing in My Colonies?

4 Italian colonies in Chanhassen

May 15, 2014

It is 46F (8C) here and winds at 12 miles per hour! It is cold!!! If I feel cold what do you think the bees are doing? No, not knitting blankets .... but they may:)

For one thing they are not foraging to much, not only because it is cold but it is also gray with no sign of the sun, so they are staying inside their hives. Cleaning, feeding the brood, tending the queen and most importantly keeping warm.
The workers keep the brood (eggs, larvae and pupae) between 91-97 F (32-36C) in any type of weather. To achieve that goal, the workers  have to eat a lot, especially when it is cool outside.
However, some queens like the Russian will lay less eggs, or stop if the temperature dips too much; therefore controlling the size of the nest to keep warm.

When I open a colony this is what I look for: The brood pattern
Is there any eggs, larvae, capped brood? Pollen? Nectar?
Is there any  room (cells available) for the queen to lay more eggs?

How many frames are covered with bees?

For a new colony: is there enough food inside the hive? What is the forecast for the next 7 days ?
These few questions will guide the beekeeper during his/her inspection.
Taking notes for each colony is also important because each "house" may behave differently.

The brood pattern means, how is a frame organized? In the middle of the brood box, one should see 3-4 frames looking like  an oval shape of mostly capped brood, with eggs, and larvae. As you take the frames on each side of the largest oval, the subsequent frames ( as you go towards the outside of the box) have smaller ovals.

(Just like a loaf of bread, as you cut the slices become smaller). This pattern is the brood, the nest. Around this shape on the frame, there is some pollen (colorful cells: yellow, white, dark yellow, orange), around this layer: some cells with nectar, and if lucky some already capped nectar cells call honey! This whole pattern on a frame looks like a "rainbow". This is the perfect brood pattern.

If you could see through the wooden box you could see: small brood shape, medium brood shape, large brood shape, medium brood shape and small again. And every frame with pollen, and nectar/honey, around. This is a perfect honey bee nest!
The outside frames are usually all honey and/or pollen mix (their pantry).

I know what I describe requires a lot of imagination...but you will get there.

See the pattern? Brood ( center), pollen (next arc) and nectar/honey Next layer: Beautiful

See the eggs

Left side: Larvae in royal jelly.
Right side: eggs

Honey bee tending a larvae

The New Bees in Chanhassen

In Chanhassen, Minnesota:

 April 14, 2014 -- I hived 4 honey bee packages of Italians
 April 21, 2014--  I hived 2 honey bee packages of Russians

They must still be wondering why it is so cold and rainy. Let's not forget that the Italian bees come from California, and the Russian bees from Kentucky!

I visited them few days after I installed them, the Italian queens were already laying eggs after only 5 days in the new homes.

The Russian queens are a bit more finicky about the weather and if it is cool, and/or rainy they will just wait until better warmer days! They have a bit of eggs and capped brood but not as much as the prolific Italians.

Russian Colonies

Italian Colonies

See the eggs! 

Beekeeping Class in Eden Prairie

The classroom looked like this one!

Thank you to all who came to the beekeeping class: Exploring Beekeeping. I know the chairs and tables were a bit small and not that comfortable, you were very patient sitting there for 2 hours.

I hope you learned a few things, it is difficult to cover the whole topic of beekeeping in such short amount of time but I hope that I piqued your interest.

Big thank you to Michael who manned the presentation remote control, you were very helpful :)

The next class will be in the fall, probably starting in October 2014. There will be 7, 2h-hour classes, each week will be a different topic of interest. It will be given at a school in Eden Prairie. I will keep you posted.

Enjoy spring!

Where is Spring?

I was just wondering where spring was in the world...because it is not in Minnesota yet! We still have low temperatures in the thirties in the morning. I bet you don't like that, well bees either.

I have installed my packages: 4 April 12 and 2 April 21. What a welcome for my bees coming from Sunny California and Georgia! They must wonder on what planet they have landed!

I will tell you their story.

In order for us in Minnesota to  obtain honey bees in the spring, they have to winter in warm places like California, Texas and Arizona. Therefore many commercial beekeepers move their hives on long bed trucks in October and November to Southern States.

Once the colonies arrive in warmer weather, they are fed carbohydrate (sugar syrup: to stimulate brood production) and protein (pollen patties: make "bee bread" nutritious food).

The beekeeper will feed his bees until each hive has 6-9 frames of brood. After about 4 months, mid-February most beekeepers put their populous hives on trucks to pollinate the Californian almond groves. This pollination not only help the almond business which is value at $4.3 billion, but it helps the colonies to expand.

Then when the almond pollination is done about 2 weeks later, the hives will go back on the trucks and moved North, following the next bloom: citrus, peaches, plums and then apples.

Now the hives are full of bees and ready to swarm. This is when the beekeepers divide their colonies creating packages or nuts to sell. You can see that the package bee business in the U.S has been build from pollination, following the different blooming fruit trees in many states.

Warmer states like Georgia, or Florida for instance don't need to move their colonies anywhere. They provide pollination in their own state, feeding their bees when needed (droughts, or "cooler" winters), then dividing their hives to be ready for April Northern beekeepers like us.

From populous colonies, bees are taken and put into packages. 

Packages are waiting to be loaded on trucks.

Packages loaded, almost ready to go!