The Queen in Chanhassen

May 16, 2011

Since both queens are in the same plastic box with their attendants, Ben had to separate the queens cages using a french wooden pickle tongs!

Now we were ready to put the new queen in Chanhassen, in our divide. This queen is a MN hygienic which has been bred at the University of Minnesota by Dr. Marla Spivak and her team.

 I placed the queen in my bee suit pocket to keep her warm until we can put her in her new hive. We have removed the little cork plug, and inserted a candy plug instead. Ben pierced a little hole in the candy so the bees have the "idea" to eat the candy to release their queen. This method is called the  slow release: it takes few days for the bees to go through the candy plug and in the meantime the queen is fed by them. During those  few days, the queen  gives away her pheromone scent to the colony and thus has a better chance to be accepted by all.

                                                                               

When we got to the apiary, we could hear the bees buzzing loudly...a sign that there is no queen present at the moment. We placed the queen on top of the frames, and right away some curious bees cam to investigate.

Then the queen cage was inserted between 2 frames. Now we let Nature takes its course. We will come back to check on her release in 5 to 7 days.

The Queens are Here

2 MN hygienic Queens

May 15, 2011

Ben went to Stillwater to purchase 2 Mn hygienic queens today. Look, they are lovely. They are in their own little cages and the attendants are feeding them. They will stay warm and in the dark in our basement until we bring them to their new respective homes: one in Chanhassen on Monday May, 16; the other one in Shakopee on Thursday May, 19. It is really fascinating to watch the attendants around the queen, they bring her some sugar syrup that has been sprayed in the plastic container. 

 Later in the afternoon, Ben and I went to Chanhassen and we took the top deep box and moved it to the 4th. hive location. So now it has 2 deep boxes, and we added 1 gallon of sugary syrup. Now few bees from hive #1 will have a new home, and tomorrow they will have a new young queen.

A gallon of 1:1 sugar:water syrup

4th. hive in Chanhassen where we placed the second box, and the white pail of syrup.

      

This frog must have known that something was brewing...it patiently observed us  moving things around without a croak!

Getting Ready for the Divide

May 12, 2011


Chanhassen Apiary: 

Ben smoking the bees before opening hive #1 in Chanhassen

Since our hive #1 was strong and healthy, we got ready for the divide. It means that we will take some of the bees from that colony and start a new one. We will take one box (deep) with brood and no eggs and move it to where we want to have a new colony. To make sure that we take the box without the queen,we added a queen excluder between the 2 top boxes. Here on the picture, it is between the top deep white and deep green. A queen excluder  is a screen that is placed over a box  preventing the "fatter" queen to go into the top box.

Hive #2: Ben did a reversal again to give room for the queen to lay her eggs. He noted 6+ frames of brood. However, not much activity yet in the supers.

Hive #3: The combs are being drawn in the 2 deep boxes, which is fantastic for a new package of bees. Ben saw a beautiful brood pattern developing. It seems that the honeybees have a lot to eat because they had consumed only 1/2 the syrup given.

Hive #4: will be created with the help of hive #1 our strongest Italian colony.

May 13,2011


Shakopee Apiary:

Hive #1: Ben did the same thing. He prepared the hive to be divided using a queen excluder. Here between the 2 top deep boxes.

Hive #1 in Shakopee

Hiving a New Package of Honeybees

Nicolas (with gloves) and Karine getting ready for the new bees

It is always exciting for a beekeeper to have new bees. This technique of hiving a package as it is called, is wonderful experience.
Nicolas and I hived our package on April 22, 2011. We were waiting for a bit of sunshine among the rain showers that seemed to fill the sky for many days.
Finally the sky cleared and we jumped in the car with all our gear and equipment. It was still gray but the rain had stopped. As we arrive at our destination in Chanhassen...it started to drizzle!
But we were there and our bees had been in the garage for 24 hours confined in a box. They needed to be released.

Spreading the bees

Ben had prepared the hive ahead of time, so we just had to place the bees inside. This year we had an observer, Liz who took all the pictures. I opened the package and took the queen cage and put it in my pocket to keep the queen warm. Nicolas shook the bees into the box. You can see the thousand of bees at the bottom. Now I am trying to "spread" them around with my hive tool in a thinner layer so I can replace the frames I had removed previously.

The Queen is in her own cage

Now that the honeybees were in place, I opened the screen from the little queen cage. I lowered my hand into the box among the humming honeybees, and let the queen crawled by herself onto the foundation. What a Grand Entrance for a Queen! Then I replaced the 4 frames carefully, keeping an eye on the queen making sure I did not injured her.

Nicolas and the pollen patties

 Before closing the hive, Nicolas place a few pieces of pollen patties on top of the frames for the honeybees. This will be their proteins for few weeks as we wait for the nectar flow. We also gave them 2 gallons of sugar syrup.

We the closed up the colony, the box has a cork plug and little pieces of grass block their main entrance. This is to make sure that the group of bees stay in this new dwelling with their queen. They don't know yet that it is their new home.

Honeybees in their new purple hive in Chanhassen

The Package is Installed

New honeybee package

April, 23 2011

Chanhassen: I was lucky this year, I did not have to drive to Stillwater, MN after all to get my package of honeybees.  Someone picked them up for me, and I got them on Thursday (4/21) afternoon. Since it was gloomy, rainy and grey on Friday, the package waited in the garage. I sprayed the bees with sugar syrup every 4 to 6 hours, mostly to calm them.
The honeybees travel from California with a can of syrup, so I knew they had food. As you can see in the package they cluster, to keep themselves and the queen warm and safe.
At this point, the queen is in an individual cage, and has been with this group of bees for 4 days. The 3,000 honeybees  are not related to the queen. The queen has been raised and mated in sunny California. Now she has all the eggs she will need in her lifetime. However, by placing the queen in a "queen-cage" protects her from being killed, and at the same time, she is able to disseminate her pheromone "her specific scent" to her "adopted" honeybees. Therefore when I put them in their hive, the honeybees will accept her readily.

More on the installation later.

Partial Reversal of Boxes

April 17, 2011:
Shakopee

 We took advantage of the sunshine and drove to Shakopee where the bridge was finally open!  

Shakopee #1

Our purple hive, (now called Shakopee #1) is doing fantastic. We saw lots of brood, eggs and larvae which are a very good sign. We did not locate the queen but we know by all that activity that she is laying eggs, and is in good "spring" shape! We also observe some glistening nectar that was deposited in the cells. Honeybees are working hard. We don't see a lot of flowers yet but the bees collect tree nectar right now, and the flow is very good at the moment.

Taken from: Beekeeping in Northern Climates by Dr. Furgala, Dr. Spivak and Mr. Reuter

We also did a "partial reversal", where we take the first box and switch it with the one below. It is suppose to help in preventing swarming, giving the queen more room to lay eggs. It has to be done at the same time every year, no matter what...just like "Tax Day" is unavoidable! It has to be done.

The honeybees are so cute and golden fuzzy; it makes me smile :) They were busy, coming and going.

I saw few ants around and on the hive, so I sprinkled some powder cinnamon on the ground. It is effective to repulse ants.

Shakopee #2 Waiting for honeybees.

This is Shakopee #2, this hive had the Carniolan bees and we lost them to starvation. It has been clean and now waits for honeybees that will come from Shakopee #1 when we do a division or split later this spring. 

Chanhassen

We stopped in Chanhassen, the sun was still shining but a little bit of wind developed. We felt colder. We were greeted by our friends Liz, Gayle, Dick and 2 puppies coming out from their house to hear some fresh news about the honeybee buzzing in their yard.

Chanhassen #1

We inspected the first colony, Chan.#1. Made also a partial reversal,  removed all corks covering entrances, and had a large entrance opened. It was a busy place. The honeybees were flying in and out, and all around us. It seems that they were happy to get some fresh air. We looked at frames and everything looked perfect, eggs, brood, nectar and discovered a "new" queen; she was unpainted! Ours had been painted blue in July 2010, indicating the year "2010". No wonder this colony is looking great.

Chanhassen  #1, beautiful!

Chanhassen #2

Chanhassen #2,  is only 2 deep (2 boxes) because it was a swarm that Ben caught from Chan #1. However, even though it is small hive. It was also doing great, full of honey and bees. Even with only 2 boxes, a partial reversal was done, cork removed, and larger entrance was in place. 

Chanhassen #3

                      Chanhassen #3 is ready to welcome the new package of  honeybees, and a queen. We transferred the frames of honey from Shakopee #2. This will give the new honeybees a wonderful head start. The "bee pickup" is still schedule for April 23 in Stillwater, MN. 

Busy Bees

The little empty colony in Shakopee, awaiting new bees from California.

April 1st. 2011:  We visited our honeybees. To our astonishment they did not touch the pollen patties that Ben and Sophie had placed 10 days or so ago. This can only  mean that our bees have enough food (honey and stored pollen) and that most importantly they can reach their bounty.

Pollen patties left untouched by the bees.

Since temperatures are increasing slowly, the honeybees can move around better, and investigate other part of their hive where they had deposited their summer and fall harvest.

It was very comforting to see them buzzing around us, they did not feel frightened...maybe they remembered us. Ben had the smoker ready and we used it to remind them that we were going to look into their hive.

Ben is removing the protective cardboard.

Now that we believe Spring is here to stay, we removed the black cardboard from each hive. This protection is now unnecessary as the temperatures oscillate between 25F to 50F (-3C & 10C). The honeybees can regulate the warmth of  their colony better.

We also cleaned up the dead bees, those are the one that expired because of old  age. Since most entrances are closed (except the top one) for the winter and bees have to stay in a cluster during the harsh months to stay alive and protect the queen, no cleaning from them is done. In doing so ourselves, we are helping them. Otherwise the honeybees would have to carry each body away from their colony, a long and strenuous job. They can enjoy Spring too!

Dead honeybees at the bottom of a colony.

Scraping unwanted combs.

Many buds on trees are ready to explode and the honeybees are ready to visit them and collect the nectar, pollen and propolis. It won't be long before you see the little one buzzing around in your garden and saying hello. Like us they are happy to be out, and like us they are waiting for nature to show itself.